Yosagi Yojimbo - Gallente Exile

Idiocy in Local

2012-02-23T06:00:00.000+10:00

You've gotta wonder, or at least I wonder, at the intelligence of a (assumed) guy who posts in local chat the text of a warning he received from CCP for language and/or content posted previously in a public channel.

Which of course the local channel is.

Then he proceeds to discuss the text of the post with another person in local, who may have been trolling him, and then they pick apart one by one the things he said or did last time in the hope of what?

Justification? Absolution?

I have no idea!

Thankfully it was nobody in my corporation but all I can see arriving from an exchange like that would be another warning from CCP, perhaps for both parties, and maybe some type of ban.

Idiocy!!!

Hiding on the Sphere

2012-02-20T06:00:00.000+10:00

Sometimes I orbit a gate or another object while cloaked to provide intelligence that the corporation and/or alliance may find useful.

Typically I'm on the telephone or otherwise at the computer but not able to provide the sort of concentration required for roaming, etc.

That started me wondering how likely it would be I'd be de-cloaked and caught while orbiting, so I broke out the math.

First we have to make some assumptions.

I'm orbiting a stationary central point ( a jump gate) at a constant distance of 250km.

This allows me to keep an eye on the gate while also being able to warp to the gate or away as the situation requires.

So we need to work out the surface area of a sphere, now as we don't know the exact figure that Pi (π) is we will use 3.141592 which is close enough for this purpose.

So the surface area of a 250km sphere is approx. 785,398km, the de-cloak range of my ship is 2.5km.

All of which adds up to a very small chance of being caught!

Roughly 1 in 157079 ¹ ².

¹ To do this properly I would work out the odds of a single enemy ship entering my ships sphere of influence also while orbiting at 250km and/or at plus or minus 2.5km (possibly 3km to be safe), differing speeds would also have to be taken into account. Maybe someday I will, however don't hold your breath.

² Very roughly.

5th Column

2012-02-17T06:00:00.000+10:00

Sometimes during a battle the enemy within can be just as dangerous.

Last night we were trying to destroy or at least remove some reds from our home system. Now these reds were actually pretty good at running us around and to be honest we should have realised this sooner and just docked up until they found somebody else to annoy.

However the fleet was called, we formed up, and tried to take these guys on.

Heading towards them we deploy drones and then a corp member does one of the more bone headed, mind numbingly stupid things I've ever seen anybody do in Eve Online.

He deploys a bomb, from (as evidence later seems to suggest) a Drake, causing damage to most of our MWD'ing fleet and also destroying a good percentage of our drones.

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

So after this Chernobyl of a screw up I'm incandescent with rage at the pilot in question as this is not the first time he's done something so stupid that I've wanted to hijack the TARDIS just to buy his great grandparents two tickets on the Titanic.

So we charge around the system a bit, align to station sometimes, chase the reds some more, etc, etc.

Hindsight being the wonderful vision tool it is shows us we should have kept the fleet together and not become strewn across hundreds of kilometres, or just docked up.

By this stage I had been alternatively chasing the reds or aligning to station as the Fleet Controller (FC) required, when I'm pointed and destroyed, and then podded.

Rather obviously I was out of range of the repping ships, though no word was said of this at the time. To be fair we were spread over a large section of space.

We eventually got a clue and docked up after losing several ships, corp text chat and voice chat was very quiet.

If I had to describe last night in one word it would be frustration.

DUST514 Interview

2012-02-15T06:00:00.000+10:00

The assumed fellows over at dust514base.com have interviewed CCP Praetorian and CCP CmdrWang about DUST514, their play testing of the game, and what features we may see in DUST514.

The interview and transcription is here.

Some quotes from the transcript.

"CCP CmdrWang: Yes we can. Yes we will support the mouse and keyboard for DUST514 including in-game shooting. And I just want to add that you know we are aware of how critical this is to get it right because we've seen other games try to attempt this and there were some problems. But we are dedicated considerable amount of resources into this particular feature because we want to do it right and we want to make sure that our players when they use the mouse and keyboard they will have a very good experience comparable to what they're used to on the PC."

Well this may confirm what has been previously reported, it would seem the keyboard and mouse control system will be available to players of DUST514, how many PS3 owners have a keyboard and mouse connected to their console is an unknown figure though.

"CCP Praetorian: Yea, exactly. And just like my assault suit, my dropsuit, it's pretty weak on the defence side so it's good to have a friend that remote armour reps. You know, spider tanking."

Remote armour reps, spider tanking? Sounding very Eve Online. What I'm wondering is how effective heaps of guys all remote repping some big bastard with a huge gun will be?

"CCP Praetorian: Yes. We share EVE's passive skilling or the overall concept of passive skilling. And then that is modified with active skilling, or success in battles and other PvP can speed up your skill point accrual. There's a lot of nuance that I don't think is possible to dive into right now but we have a dev blog very soon explaining this properly."

So this essentially sounds like a reward system for doing well in a battle and other combat, to reward the player and also speed up their training somewhat so they don't languish too far behind.

"Grideris: Basically from one of the fitting screens that you released as a screenshot, there was a particular module that was a Minmatar faction module. But it also had imposed on the screen saying that there was a particular achievement or level you had to get in service for the Minmatar Republic to be able to use the module. What was the deal with that?"

This may tie in with the above in that you have to meet some sort of achievement before it will let you fit the more advanced modules? What happens if a bunch of geared up guys go against some new players to the game? Maybe some sort of match making system will exist? Or can it considering this is corp based combat? Questions, questions, questions!

"CCP Praetorian: Ejyo is really good by the way,"

Well at least we now know why the quarterly economic reports stopped.

"Grideris: So you'll be able to stand on the ground in your dropsuit and basically talk to the guy in the Dreadnought up in orbit shooting at the other guys. Directly?

CCP Praetorian: Yep"

Direct communications using the in game system between the DUST514 players and Eve Online is pretty cool, of course I don't know of any alliance that actually uses the in game voice system. I suppose we could use that in addition to Teamspeak for the occasional times we need to order a ground squad to do whatever it is they do.

For full disclosure I have only read the transcript and not viewed the video as taking 18 minutes to watch a video when I can read the text in 2 is not a great way to use my time.

Not much new information here to be honest but all the same it is handy to have much of this in the one place. I look forward to the various videos they say are being worked on at the moment.

Summer Display Card Massacre

2012-02-14T06:00:00.000+10:00

The idea was to jump clone out to high sec for a day, do some stuff, jump back when the timer runs out and all would be good.

It turns out my computer had other ideas.

Bzzzzzt! Frozen computer!

To back track a bit.

The display card has been getting quite hot during my very warm days, the fan doesn't seem to be spinning like it did before as it approaches the twilight of usefulness.

Anyway.

I grabbed a program to modify the cards cooling characteristics to try and reduce the issue, this worked fine for about fifteen minutes but then the computer started freezing.

Okay sure not a big problem, I'll just reverse what I'd done and we'll be all happy.

Nope, even with the program removed the computer would still crash entering any game I tested it with.

The next step was to repair the display drivers, no help, then complete uninstall, reboot, and custom install of the drivers, this time removing any of the old settings.

Success!

Well so far anyway.

Once again I've been reminded of the old saying, if it's not broken don't fix it!

Given enough time I'll probably forget that again.

Felicia Day Amazeballs

2012-02-12T06:00:00.000+10:00

It seems that Felicia Day has discovered the character creator in Eve Online, and by logical extension her nearly 1.9 million Twitter followers are now more aware of Eve Online.

I'm not entirely sure if this is a good thing but the cat is out of the bag so what can you do.

It's a pity we don't have a fully realised "Walking in Station" as opposed to "Trapped in a Small Room" as I'm sure the Felicia Day Twitter crowd would appreciate the character creator and then the ability to wander around and do stuff (tm).

For the current citizens of New Eden CCP's direction appears to be the correct one.

Q Ships

2012-02-11T06:00:00.000+10:00

The Mighty Iteron V, combat ship of New Eden!

Well sort of.

You might have already read this, if not then have a look, I'll wait for you to return.

Iteron Owns Megathron

Yes it's most amusing, but not the seemingly once a year event you may assume it is.

Witness the wonders of Twitter.

So we can see that the mighty Iteron V managed to vanquish at least 701 ships in 2011, of which 59 were battleships.

Mighty indeed!

The final words on this workhorse of New Eden are from our friends at a Japanese Eve Online web site, translated via the ever helpful Google Chrome.

"Final form Garento transport ship. Long as if they were freed at once the force because MarkIV. Really long.
When you are really broken so softening times head.
Cargo capacity is up to the maximum length was only proud. Approximately 25000m3, 38000m3 to reach to about three plug in an extension should be filled with cargo cargo rig without even the Low rig."

I think that says it all really.

Approaching the Truth

2012-02-09T06:00:00.000+10:00

A new video for Eve Online was released yesterday and apart from over selling the action a little bit it is by far and away the most truthful promo video released by CCP in recent times.

Enjoy!

Superior Control of DUST514

2012-02-08T06:00:00.000+10:00

Yesterday in the world of Twitter this happened...

While I'm not entirely convinced this is an actual "official" official announcement it is possible that keyboard and mouse support for DUST514 may be a reality. With luck at the Fanfest we'll find that out for sure.

Dusting the Potential Account Issues

2012-02-07T06:00:00.000+10:00

The DUST514 closed beta sign up is now finally with us, more information and a link to the sign up page can be found here.

Also a couple of interviews have been made with CCP about Eve Online, DUST514 and World of Darkness. The interviews are fairly light on information and very little new information has been released but one educated guess has been confirmed.

DUST514 will be playable at Fanfest 2012!

That will be very interesting as for the first time we'll hear from actual gamers about DUST514.

I hope CCP have it working properly for the sake of everybody.

Some other news regards the updating of the Eve Online web site, this will be a multi stage process and seems geared more towards helping new players understand the game and what it can offer, rather than the grizzled veterans grousing about a 0.25 second delay in activating some module that only three other guys in the game use.

It's also that time of the year when my Eve Online game play account is due for renewal. For some reason this was a drama last time and it would seem we are heading towards the same problem this time. Anticipating some issue I started contacting CCP about the possible impending situation more than a week ago via the petition system. I was then asked to contact somebody else, fair enough, but after two emails I'm still waiting for a reply.

On the plus side I've recently bought a Kindle, so I'll be better catered for entertainment wise should I have forced downtime.

The Queue and Official Corporation Forums

2012-02-01T06:00:00.000+10:00

Over the past few days, perhaps a week or so, I've been hitting the login queue. What I'm not sure about is what it means. Is it caused by increasing characters logging in thus creating a traffic jam of sorts, or is it just CCP server issues?

CCP are doing some more to help the community, especially the younger corporations with an optional addition to the forums. This addition provides a type of sub forum which is only accessible to members of the corporation, read more about it here.

Of some interest though is this...

"Neither CCP Staff nor the Volunteer Forum Moderators will monitor your Corp Forums. As the proprietors of the database, CCP staff will have emergency access in case something terrible happens that we need to verify, but Volunteer Moderators will under no circumstances be able to gain access."

With the current amount of racism, anti-semitism, discussions on exploits, bots and general ass hattery that exists in some of the various un-official forums, voice chat etc I'd be rather surprised if CCP can ignore that should it become endemic to the official corporation forums.

For these reasons I'm not entirely sure this new official forum feature will see much use, or its uptake will be very slow, but as each corporation forum is walled off from the rest we'll probably never know for sure.

DUST514, SONY and You

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000+10:00

Some more game play footage from DUST514 is now available from the Sony Playstation web site here.

Once you manage to swallow the rising bile from the overly gushing and frankly quite bloody annoying presenter a small amount of DUST514 game play is shown alongside other games and news.

A Spring release date is mentioned, so sometime towards the end of June 2012 is expected, as has been for a while.

The action looks fast and frantic which is fantastic as this was my main worry.

I'd almost convinced myself that CCP were going to use the graphics system from the aborted Eve Online Captains Quarters for DUST514, thankfully this short demo once again reminds me this isn't the case.

While I will not be playing DUST514, I look forward to its impact on New Eden in Eve Online and hope that CCP have done a good job with this integration initially, and are not hoping to catch up as the weeks and months drag on after the DUST514 release.

We can only hope.

Blog Banter 32: The Foundations of Eve

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000+10:00

This month’s Blog Banter comes from Drackarn of Sand, Cider and Spaceships.

"A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other such tears. With the Goons' Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of mining ships there were calls for an "opt out of PvP" option.

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online? Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?"

With consensual PVP Eve Online would become something else, you might as well change the name as all the past foundation and aura of the game would be gone.

Sit down and let me tell you a story.

One day Yosagi was walking around a shopping center Out Of Game (OOG) In Real Life (IRL). Yosagi was observing the people wandering around oblivious to the world around them, only interested in buying a frilly piece of this or some liquid of that. Yosagi was walking around because his Trouble And Strife (WIFE) was looking at things to spend Yosagi's money on, sometimes useful things but often not.

Soon Yosagi spied a store he had some interest in, a gaming store. While he was content in his own gaming choice he was interested in what the people around him might be playing as being in Eve Online for several years had left him out of touch. Upon entering the store and finding the section dedicated to console and computer games he was confused. The selection seemed all the same, one shooter game seemed much like the rest and alas his beloved Eve Online was nowhere to be seen.

Within a short time one of the staff approached Yosagi, against all convention this staff member was clear of face and had a voice that wouldn't annoy dogs. This staff member tried to interest Yosagi in this game or that but soon realised he was wasting his time, then he did something unexpected, he asked Yosagi what he played.

Yosagi replied that for the last four years he had been playing, nay living, in the Eve Online universe.

Just then it turned quiet.

The lights seemed to dim a bit.

The staff member lowered his voice and asked in a slightly reverent tone if Yosagi had said Eve Online.

Yosagi replies in the affirmative.

The staff member then asked many questions in rapid succession about how hard core Eve Online really is, if the scams are true, if it really is essentially like one big server.

Yosagi tried to help him with some answers but explaining everything to somebody who hasn't experienced the game had some difficulties.

Some time passes and Yosagi leaves the store.

Some months later Yosagi once again finds himself in the same shopping center, again waiting on the eventual purchase of frilly things and various liquids.

The gaming store is gone.

Yosagi suspects he has moved to New Eden.

So in conclusion most of the above is why consensual PVP in Eve Online is a bad idea, the rest is shopping.

I Made Your Destroyed Ship!

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000+10:00

I enjoy the manufacturing part of Eve Online almost as much as the combat.

Figuring out where the profits are, and the forces, both internal and external, that drive them is a great way to while the hours away before the next unconscious break.

"Hi I'm Yosagi and I've been clean for four years."

About four years ago I stopped playing that MMO whose name should not be mentioned in Eve Online discussions. One thing I did like about "that game" was the item crafting, especially the creators name being attached to the piece.

It would be cool if in Eve Online when I make anything the name and corporation name, at the time, was attached to that item, and then on kill mails we could see who made the items that dropped or were destroyed.

For instance it could say [Hurricane, constructed by Yosagi Yojimbo of PKME Corporation].

Maybe even with the updated graphics all the ships are eventually receiving we could have a "makers mark" on the hull to signify who made the ship.

A more sinister side could also emerge, targeting the manufacturer or his corporation.

Assuming that this system is only applied to ships, upon seeing the same name or corporation upon many vanquished ships, the source could be attacked or at least inconvenienced in some way to try and disrupt the supply chain.

You could even see who was selling to both sides.

As an idea it's certainly one of them.

The Action at 0LTQ-C

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000+10:00

Our fleet formed up due to a strange CTA vacuum. We ended up having a few Hurricanes, a couple of Scimitars, a Curse, a Drake, and a Sabre.

We left on the roam, checked a few places out but it was pretty quiet, found a few neutrals but they were docked up or safely tucked away somewhere.

Our Fleet Controller (FC) logged, and also another Hurricane so our small fleet became smaller.

By this stage I was scouting in my 'cane, jumped through a gate to find in local fifteen or so nuets, holding cloak and using the directional scanner to try and find their fleet composition. Which turned out to be pretty redundant as they started landing on the gate with what seemed like two of every battle cruiser, a logistics and an assault frigate.

Suggesting to our fleet on the other side of the gate they may wish to get safe, I attempt to re-approach the gate at speed.

The bad guys were still clustered close around the gate, they'd not spread out to try and find me, which is what I had hoped would happen as I'd jumped in before the first of them had landed on the gate, but now my thirty second cloak timer was running out.

Adjusted the testicles, selected the gate, hit approach, switched on the Micro Warp Drive, and other modules and waited to see what would happen.

It would seem I've surprised them as it's a quarter of the way to the gate before the first yellow boxes appear, building up speed and halfway there when the first damage starts hitting the shields. Expecting a bump from their faster ships at any second, or the soul crushing double web, but rather surprisingly hit the gate having taken only twenty percent damage and jumped through, they don't immediately follow.

Our fleet leaves the gate for the relative safety of a planet, the FC creates a safer warp position a couple of hundred kilometers further on and we align to a station. Not long afterwards one of their 'canes warps in on us, we then warp to station. The rest of their ships warp in and the order is given to dock up.

Bio break!

Refreshing! Hey look a blue is in local.

Then many more blues as local fills up, deciding this could be a good time to make a break for it we undock and warp somewhere to get off station.

Meanwhile...

In system the reds have entered combat with the blue gang, outnumbered about five to one they are destroyed, but like bad prawns they don't know when to give up.

Wearing the scout hat again I warp to the out gate only to be caught in a bubble, destroying the bubble another fleet member also becomes caught before the bubble goes down. Deciding sitting where a bubble was about 130km from gate is a substandard situation I start burning for the gate.

About a third of the way there and the reds start landing at where the bubble was, my fleet mate is not with me and soon becomes swamped by half a dozen reds. Their smaller faster ships start burning towards mine, I'm closer to the gate than my certainly soon to be destroyed fleet mate, the reds getting closer, I'm shooting "over my shoulder" to discourage them when the rest of our fleet arrives where the bubble was.

The rest of our fleet attacks the reds while madly repping the previously outnumbered fleet mate.

At this stage we are probably outnumbered and outgunned, the reds have re-shipped faster than a fat guy reaching for another donut but local still has plenty of blues, who start arriving at the battle.

Never have I been more happy to see a bunch of Goonies than now, but their fleet composition seems to be mostly frigates with some battle cruisers.

The battlefield is long, stretching about one hundred kilometres from near to the jump gate back towards where the bubble was. The outcome of the battle seems assured but with the blues so stretched out local pockets of reds are still dangerous, you could lose your ship while surrounded by blues very easily at this stage.

The FC calls out targets, but I'm well out of position compared to the rest of the fleet. Spotting a Jaguar fairly close I put a few shots into him, going down fast he's soon travelling home in the pod express for the second time tonight.

Suddenly the FC hands fleet control over to me as he's too busy to FC at the same time, by this stage though only three red ships remain, a 'cane and two Drakes.

However the Drake's are very close to my ship, one of them is running a NOS or Nuet, my cap is dropping faster than a heavy thing. Rather selfishly I call the closest Drake as the primary target and belatedly the other Drake as the secondary, their 'cane died during the FC change over. Pretty soon both Drakes are down and the battlefield is ours!

Exchanging much love to our fellow Goonies in local, who seem to be doing the same to us we back slap for half a minute and then start making our way home, arriving not long afterwards.

These are the fights we hope for when joining fleet.

Incoming Update and Continued Drama

2012-01-14T06:00:00.000+10:00

January the 24th brings us the release of the Crucible update version 1.1, details here.

With items like a Neocom you can customise, an option to reduce the pilot tags in local and another reduction in session timers (amongst other updates) it looks like a worthwhile update.

In other news the Goonie juggernaut rolls on, though this time with a twist, I actually saw some real live enemies in local for the first time!

It took me a few seconds to realise what was going on as I looked at local, saw the numbers were high, then had to look again as it suddenly dawned on me some of those pilots were not "blue".

They didn't stay long as "we" started forming a response fleet pretty damn quick but it's a welcome change from endlessly destroying their POS's, TCU's and SBU's with no hint of a defense fleet, at least not in my time zone.

Talking about drama, and this next one has heaps of it, the long drawn out saga that is EBANK continues with some more dividends being paid out with the obligatory trolling by some members of the forum community that don't know when to let a subject die. Though now I guess I'm one of those also, ahh well.

January, Gankers and the GUI

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000+10:00

As I'm an active blogger, well semi-active, okay lets say occasional and leave it at that, CCP have offered me two tickets to this years Fanfest in ~~sunny~~ Iceland. While this is a nice gesture it unfortunately doesn't include the approximately four thousand dollars I would need for the round trip, so I will not be freezing my arse off in Iceland this year.

The war helping the great Satan, aka The Mittani, has mostly ended with some roams heading out to harass targets of opportunity and also move ships back to Cloud Ring. The campaign seems to have been a success, I certainly racked up some kills, but perhaps I've suffered a couple of casualties as a result of the campaign, time will tell.

CCP are having another look at the GUI. Now I'm not one of those who thinks the GUI is broken but their are plenty of users who fervently believe it is, going so far as to foam at the mouth and mutter obscenities every time the GUI is mentioned. It would seem that CCP also think it could use a change, perhaps just to modernise the look rather than a massive change in functionality. Interestingly they are not testing the changes on the Sisi test server, the changes will go live on the main server sometime in January, which could lead to tears.

Now that the war has mostly wound down and CTA's are less common I've jumped back to high sec for a couple of days for various activities, however null security space had a general feeling of safety compared to The Forge.

It seems that on every gate a ship or two is scanning cargo holds for some juicy loot, then further down the line a hit squad of the new Tier 3 ships are waiting to take out the potential ISK whale and divide the bounty. Freighters and Orca's are no longer as safe as they were, although some common sense fitting of the Orca can make it much tougher, at the expense of cargo capacity.

Null security space, at least our area, is "blue" nearly all the time, I don't have to worry about the itchy trigger finger of some guy looking to score the contents of my cargo.

High security space is like going to an over crowded, dangerous city.

I cannot wait to jump clone away.

CTA's and Post Crucible Funk

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000+10:00

Yesterday, after the various interruptions of Christmas, New Years, etc had passed, I finally managed a maneuver too the thin edge of the wedge and participated in the current round of rolling Goonie CTA's.

While the political and other views of the controlling FC leave much to be desired it was good to see the logistics operating in the staging system, then cyno'ing into the target system, destroying the target, and then the move to the next target.

This went on for a while and then some folks went offline waiting for downtime and others, myself included, cyno'd back to the staging system as I wasn't able to do much more that night.

The total firepower employed was fairly impressive with only a few minutes spent on each target, more time was spend travelling between targets than taking them down.

The war appears to be going well with little resistance reported, with any luck it'll only last another week or two.

Though the vanquished will not disappear forever, to me it seems to be a game of Whack-a-Mole, they may be knocked down for now but rise they will again.

The post update funk seems to have set in as players now realise what the Crucible update really provided and now the next event will be the Fanfest and then, I assume, the "Summer" update.

Charcoal Images of Night

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000+10:00

Christmas and all it brings are now behind us for another year.

Eve Online rolls on and by now you should have received your invitation to apply for the DUST514 beta test, if not then head on over to DUST514.com and check out the details there.

The new alliance we are in is embroiled in the war with or against the goons, it matters little.

Every operation is a CTA (which basically means you must be there), at shitty times on shitty days with shitty fleet commanders.

I'm not saying they're incompetent, but if I want to find out how wrinkly a scrotum us I'll inspect my own rather than hear about it in graphic detail from some goonswarm pre-pubescent 'tard who probably doesn't even shave yet.

The time of year also doesn't help, organising this stuff around Christmas and the invasion of interruptions that attracts is insane.

Though it'll be the same for the other side.

I've hardly seen the front line as I seem to be perpetually just behind it.

I hear the battle reports, listen to the tense combat on comms, watch some ships limp back from the battle, some of them on fire, and then have to log for some RL activity that seems to have little to do with mirth and more with endurance.

Now I'm off to attend some meeting with more endlessly talking meat bags who'll try and convince me that 2012 will be a great year, certainly better than 2011.

Happy new year.

Which One's Sarge?

2011-12-23T06:00:00.000+10:00

The Gallante is so posing

It seems the news about DUST514 continues to increase with Dropsuits now highlighted on the DUST514.com web site.

This was released a couple of days ago but being "busy" with the latest goon offensive at the orders of Mittens I missed it.

Of some interest is the fitting relationship between space ships in Eve Online, vehicles and now suits in DUST514. While the system will look very familiar to the grizzled space veterans I cannot help but wonder, with some amusement I must add, how the instant gratification ADHD kiddies will understand the system with all its permutations.

DUST514 and Eve Online Interaction

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000+10:00

You might want to keep an eye on dust514.com as soon, perhaps tomorrow, CCP will be releasing the first of two articles explaining how Eve Online and DUST514 will interact with each other.

Also it seems that attendees to Fanfest 2012 will be given beta keys to use with DUST514.

This will be parasitical as it can only rob (or borrow) players from Eve Online, but it will give those players, who lets face it have a vested interest in DUST514 if they know it or not, a taste of the new shooter.

Assuming they have a PS3.

Also assuming they stop playing Eve Online, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty Current Version, generic shooter, etc etc long enough to give it a go.

Forum Gems

2011-12-10T06:00:00.000+10:00

Typically the Eve Online forums are full of trolls and useless topics rehashing old events, this is doubly true of General Discussion.

However occasionally, just occasionally a gem is posted.

This is one of those gems from Kolomogorow, have a read below.

I'll tell you a story I heard from an uncle's his friend's son's second account, and it is true:

"I am a high sec miner. When I mine in high sec I feel a strong union with matter, mind and the universe. My mining laser beams are the wire to a godlike entity. It sits in the asteroids and his power emanates from there flowing through the laser beam back to my barge, into the control panel (through various other devices I cannot all count here) and into my eyes filling me with massless absinth. (This metaphor for the unenlightened.)

Sometimes lovely creatures approach me and sacrifice themselves and their war ships, worshipping me and my illuminated wire to the holy asteroids. As a sign of my graciousness I transform myself into a glimmering rain of salvage wrecks. Swimming in a warm sea of blessedness, they are happy and often write exalted greetings into their communicator, sometimes confusing and mispelling the words under the massive pressure of their gladness. Not rarely I read "ph-uck" when they meant "l-uck". And I answer in their own language to not break the enjoyment of being close to each other.

Occasionally I guide them to a group of other hard working and silent miners. They are my enemies and the war ship pilots are happy to serve me by destroying them (<- the enemies) and themselves (<- the war ship pilots) with great delight and they cannot wait to return with a new ship (asap and oaoa (<- over and over again)). In all their excitement they mess who is friend (<- me) and who is foe (<- the silent miners). Once they have destroyed my ship by an unfortunate accident and in the heat of the moment I am silent this time (resulting in their belief that is was not me they destroyed, so to speak) to not catapult them into desparation and self-reproach.

Yes, they are servants unknowingly and without will. But it is an exploit without pain and for a better world (<- includes asteroids)."

He is a high sec miner and he knows what he says. Thank you for reading and I'll send him your greetings.

DUST514 Weapons and Beta Delay

2011-12-09T06:00:00.000+10:00

Some more DUST514 news in the space of a week?

We are not worthy!

This time it's the infantry weapons getting some exposure.

Looking good, but how about some more game play footage?

However we also have this...

Which seems to suggest the beta will not kick off until the first quarter of 2012, which could quite easily push back the full release date.

Time will tell.

Compare Similar Items

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000+10:00

Imagine my surprise when I found out this little gem was not common knowledge!

Choose a module, for this example I used the very popular 425mm AutoCannon II, click on the Variations tab and then down the bottom select the Compare button.

Another screen will appear with the various versions of the module and some display options on the left hand side, select some of them.

Now we have the various versions of the 425mm AutoCannon showing their usage of power, CPU, etc etc.

Pretty damn useful if you ask me, much better than clicking back and forward to try and compare whatever statistic is the most important at the time.

DUST514 Vehicles

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000+10:00

Another drip in the trickling intravenous tube of DUST514 information has been released, this time showcasing some of the vehicles to be used.

Unsurprisingly their fitting options are similar to our ships in Eve Online with places for modules, power, CPU, etc.

They all look pretty good but I shudder to think how well they'll perform on the increasingly ancient PS3 as the example of the Captains Quarters in Eve Online is a shuddering disaster, albeit on a different platform.

Perhaps with Crucible now out of the way the DUST514 information supply will increase, especially as the closed beta is due this month and full release in about six months.

Historic Crucible Landing

2011-12-02T06:00:00.000+10:00

After downloading the update from CCP's rather slow servers, finding out my update didn't install properly, running the repair tool which ended up working quite well, dealing with a few long DT's for mini patches and finally we possibly arrive at a safe place post update.

The thing to remember with Crucible is it doesn't offer much in new gameplay, new things to do, but what it does is polish Eve Online to a sheen not seen for years.

The first thing you notice is the new font. While it made my eyes water for a few minutes while I digested the change after using it for a while I'm very happy with it. If I had any criticism it would be the decimal points are not clear enough when viewing market prices.

The Tier 3 battlecruisers are now in game and the amount of theory crafting going on in the various chat channels I lurk in is amazing. My opinion is they are a fleet ship, solo use and especially PVE use will be short and terminal. I'm looking forward to seeing where they end up in the overall scheme of things but that will be a while.

The new warping graphics are simply gorgeous! The warp tunnel is back, the warp effects on other objects outside the tunnel is really cool and the first time you warp through a planet is amazing. I know of at least one person who has re-subbed just on this feature alone. I even had somebody pass me in warp yesterday!

If nothing else does then the new warp effects improve the game immersion factor by quite a margin.

Following on from that the new option to jump automatically when you arrive at a gate is very handy, much more than I thought it would be. As I'm relocating a few ships at the moment it reduces the mouse work load by about half, pretty good when all up I have about one hundred and eighty jumps to do. Being able to set a station as a destination and then autopilot dock there is another nice feature.

Planetary Interaction has some folks up in arms though. With the tax change, which we knew about, and the adjustment to the base value of the goods, which we didn't know about, the sky is apparently falling and the world will end soon...or something like that.

However what it has done is create a wonderful market opportunity for the more savvy industrialists and marketeers of Eve Online, I'm enjoying the change immensely.

Engine trails! I didn't realise I'd missed them so much until they returned, even one of the demon spawn mentioned they looked cool. Wasn't expecting that!

The nebula are pretty good. I'm happy with their balance as I was concerned CCP had gone more Liberace and less Philip Glass with them, it seems to have worked out well and also helps with game immersion.

Gallente buff is nice, not sure if it's far enough but at least it's a start.

Finally the removal of insurance payouts if you are Concorded, should have happened ages ago.

Yep that's about it for now, overall quite happy with the update but starting to think about what will come next, especially when the next one is due about the same time as the launch of DUST514 and can CCP perform two major operations at the same time?

History says no.

Tier 3 Battlecruisers

2011-11-29T06:00:00.000+10:00

A rather neat video showcasing the Tier 3 battlecruisers, engine trails and the new warp effect that are being introduced in the Crucible patch/expansion.

Milestone

2011-11-28T06:00:00.000+10:00

A few days ago this blog turned two hundred and fifty.

The posting frequency has been erratic but trending towards some sort of stable regime in the past year.

On the 22nd of May 2009 I created the first post on this blog, and it was a re-post from the 22nd of December 2008.

At that time I was in an alliance called The Reapers who were great folks but everything comes to an end.

I was writing bits and pieces here there and everywhere and it was fast becoming unwieldy so obviously the next step was to amalgamate everything worth saving and create this blog.

Well not quite.

What I created was two blogs, one for fiction and the other a more typical style format.

I soon realised this creates double the work, so after about forty eight posts the two were amalgamated.

This blogs continuation is at least because of two things.

Often in game I'm asked the same questions time and time again, so those were soon turned into posts and now I can just link the URL and once they've read it deal with any unforeseen follow up questions.

The other is this has become a written memory of sorts, plotting the evolution of the game, my activities, the people I've met, etc etc.

These days it's on the list of blogs that CCP maintains on the Eve Online website, a sometimes contributor to the Blog Banter project and the traffic is on the rise.

That's all fine.

Strange Avatar Activity

2011-11-26T06:00:00.000+10:00

Zooming around in New Eden I've noticed something strange, especially the closer you are to Jita.

Characters with the same first and last name, like muzshr muzshr or sajimnb sajimnb.

Using those two as an example, though others are around who are the same, they joined the game at about the same time, they created their own corporation on the same day, it's a single person corporation and they are not at war with anybody when I checked.

In addition we have ghtsg who only has a single name, hasn't been in the game as long as the two above, is also in a single person corp ( just gained some new members today, like nwywhs ) created on the same day.

Furthermore we have zzhbnj and jjkkmmx who are also in single person corps, created on about the same day as each other but they both joined the game on the same day.

At the moment I don't know what to make of this.

What have you seen?

Crucible Changes

2011-11-25T06:00:00.000+10:00

Amid the back slapping and general happiness surrounding the impending Crucible expansion it must be remembered we are not sitting on a peak and rising.

The peak is behind us, we are in a trough, only now are we beginning the long climb up the next one.

I have about 224 people in my contacts list for various reasons.

At any one time only five, or on a good day ten, of those people are logged in.

So being generous the most I see is five percent of my contacts online at any one time.

Those are the sorts of figures that Crucible needs to change for the better.

Will this happen?

It has a good chance, probably the best chance of any recent expansion.

The doom and gloom merchants are always braying about how Eve Online is dying and the end is nigh but this could genuinely be a crossroads for both Eve Online and CCP.

I'm both enthusiastic and apprehensive about coming events.

Crucible Roaming CCP

2011-11-23T06:00:00.000+10:00

The Crucible expansion is about to land in a few days. Obviously CCP are hoping for a boost to paying subscriber numbers once the expansion has settled.

I have to say I'm glad they finally picked a name as calling Crucible the "Winter" expansion was getting old when I'm sitting here in low thirty degree Celsius temperatures and have two fans on constantly.

I digress.

Usually after an expansion the number of concurrent users online has a boost, sometimes to about 60,000. After the Incarna "expansion" this didn't happen due to the extreme weakness and disappointment of that release.

For those reading this in the distant future the first release of the Captains Quarters was a disaster.

In time we'll be able to judge the success of Crucible but it should eclipse at least the Incarna update, with any luck also Apocrypha.

CCP have also decided to throw some employees into pods and have set off from Polaris, the last remaining bastion of Eve TV, tournament videos that update quickly and useful Christmas ship gifts.

After years of coping abuse on the forums for all manor of things they've finally snapped and have decided to hunt down and destroy those that have wronged them in low and null security space.

Or not.

At the time of writing we really don't know what they are doing, perhaps some of them are playing the game for the first time, seeing what this funny little spaceship game is all about.

Maybe they are going to defend Chribba's POS from whoever thinks it's a good idea to shoot it this week.

In due course all will become clear.

Clear Skies Killer?

2011-11-20T06:00:00.000+10:00

The folks at Rooks and Kings make Eve Online videos apparently, well this is the first one I've seen.

Grab the 1080P version, watch it on the 52 inch and be amazed.

They've done a fantastic job.

Redemption

2011-11-19T06:00:00.000+10:00

CCP Grayscale has written a dev blog about the changes to anomalies that will be released with the Crucible expansion.

To me the more interesting item was a post he made in the comments thread attached to that dev blog.

"Also, a couple of things I'm expecting people to ask about that I want to clear up in advance:

First, this blog was entirely my idea; the original implementation was badly designed and I have no problem admitting that. We make mistakes, we learn from them, and we do things better next time around.

Second, yes, there was a huge angry forum thread for the first blog and I ignored it. That was also a mistake (obviously, in retrospect). This happened partly because I was too focused on looking for reasoned critiques to appreciate the significance of the huge outburst that it generated, but mainly because I've been increasingly withdrawn from the forums for the last year or two. It's a pretty draining experience reading page after page after page of angry posts, about all kinds of topics but all ultimately driven by the same core concerns of abandonment and neglect, and agreeing with those concerns, and not being able to do much of anything about it. As a result, I've been avoiding listening to the forums and focusing on doing the best work I can, but the former occasionally precludes the latter. On the bright side, it feels like the mood on the forums has been improving hugely in the last month or two, and I'm making an effort to read and post more as a result. Whether or not this is a good thing is of course a matter of personal opinion ;)"

Quoting the surprisingly frank and truthful part.

"and agreeing with those concerns"

Either CCP have really turned over a new leaf or they still have discontent in the ranks.

Time will tell.

Blog Banter 30: Stealth Storefront Implementation

2011-11-18T06:30:00.000+10:00

Blog Banter 30: The Melting Pot

"With the Winter expansion possibly being named 'Crucible', it certainly is a melting pot of refinements and tweaks aimed at making the EVE experience smoother and more wholesome. If the developers suddenly found themselves some spare resources and approached you for an additional feature to include before release, what single concept would you pitch them and how would you implement it?

For bonus points, the one thing lacking from this "patchwork" of iterations is a cohesive storyline to package "The Crucible" together. How could this expansion be marketed to potential new customers?"

Well we now know the "Winter" expansion will be called Crucible and with approximately fifty changes to the game announced so far it has the potential to be a good one.

However what would I change that has not been announced so far?

Well many things but something which I believe would be obtainable is influenced by the "Winter" expansion changes to the Customs facilities.

In high, low and null security space the markets let you buy and sell, with some scamming potential thrown in for good measure.

However what if you could modify your prices based on the standings that individual, corporation, alliance has with you or your corporation?

While I believe this would be of more use in null security space it could certainly be used all over.

As an example I wish to sell some 425mm Railgun II's at a station somewhere in null, but I prefer to supply my friends rather than my enemies. So a discount of 20% will be given to those who are +10 to me, and 10% to those who are +5.

Now the discount figures are not linear so a dastardly Goonswarm pilot tries to buy out all the stock and resell for profit, or just to deny our magnificent men and women in their flying machines some shiny guns.

I, seeing this as a potential problem, have Goonswarm set to -10, and I have a 100% surcharge for those lucky enough to have that standing, so while I cannot totally deny the sale I will make more ISK from his action which helps me and maybe my corp/alliance.

Certainly you could not set standings, discounts or surcharges, and you may move more product or make more money, but the option would be there if you wish.

--------------

Tying the Crucible expansion together is tricky. I considered the selling point of:

We listened, we changed, we delivered!

However this could be a little too much like the NGE or some pizza chain.

Otherwise some sort of storyline which includes Concord and Interbus updating various systems including the Neocom could be implemented?

/me shrugs

Crucible Video Goodies

2011-11-18T06:00:00.001+10:00

Cilayin from the forums has posted a video displaying most of the visual changes coming in the Crucible expansion.

Good work that man!

* I assume Cilayin is male IRL, I base this on the typical Eve Online player male to female ratio.

Random Crucible Images

2011-11-17T06:00:00.000+10:00

Some random Crucible images dragged from the web.

Crucible Splash Screen

Map Options...Jump Bridge Routes!?!

Huge Session Timer....Compensating?

Estimated Training Time in Prerequisites

Crucible is Go!

2011-11-16T06:30:00.000+10:00

We have a date, November the 29th, we have an official web page outlining the changes (patch notes to follow naturally), a proper name (Crucible), and some quotable quotes.

Like...

"RE-IGNITE THE FIRE"

and;

"This is EVE re-forged."

Etc etc.

Believe it or don't but I think CCP might even realise this expansion is a make or break deal, especially when they are giving away Christmas gifts this season that don't appear to be totally useless.

Repairing Love

2011-11-16T06:00:00.000+10:00

Damaged modules are a pain, their is no current way to tell if anythings damaged apart from selecting all and repairing all.

So using the new power I probably shouldn't have this has been created.

I'm not sure how well this would cater for the colour blind but visually for me it would be an obvious pointer towards those modules that need some repairing love.

Neon Pointers

2011-11-15T06:00:00.000+10:00

This video recently released by CCP highlights a few things that should be available in the "Winter" expansion.

Namely engine trails, the warp tunnel and visual distortions caused by the warp tunnel.

Particularly when the ship passes through the planet.

I don't think everybody will be rejoicing at the re-introduction of engine trails, especially those ships trying to escape a gate camp, but to me this all looks pretty good.

The Most Important Expansion

2011-11-14T06:00:00.000+10:00

So I was trying to figure out how many changes CCP have said they are or might be going to make with the "Winter" expansion.

Then I started considering the work involved in listing all the changes but that sounded like work so trawling the forums I found a post by Iam Widdershins who has already done it.

Here it is!

Looking through the list even I was surprised at the amount of changes planned, and also a little concerned.

From a balance point of view I'm worried that this amount of change will provide a massive unforeseen imbalance and then the patches to correct the issues will rock the game for a while creating an unhappy user base again, for a while.

However I hope it will be awesome, I think CCP needs it to be awesome.

This could very well be the most important expansion in the life of Eve Online.

The Captive Audience

2011-11-11T06:00:00.000+10:00

To the new reader who is now following my shambolic ramblings.

Welcome!

Congratulations to the existing followers who have put up with this for so long.

To all the lurkers, yes you know who you are.

Comfortable?

Good.

Lets continue.

Eve Information Portal

2011-11-10T06:00:00.000+10:00

After numerous days of winning CCP have released a dev blog introducing the Eve Information Portal (EIP).

WOW I wonder WoT gave them that idea?

Eve Online is not an onion, it doesn't need extra layers, I don't want yet another screen extolling the virtues of the game I already play, the choir does not need to be preached to, I have enough Kool Aid.

It would seem the idea behind the EIP makes it easier for CCP to release fast updates, live access to major updates etc.

Expect adverts.

This is not a good thing.

As has been shown several times in the past (boot.ini, etc) getting an update early is not always wise, even when it's been officially released.

I prefer to utilise some other members of the Eve community as my test subjects and then if no major forum objections are forthcoming off to patch installation land I go. The happy coincidence is this testing procedure happens during my regularly scheduled unconscious time.

With luck now we have the new and improved super happy fun time CCP they will provide an option to switch it off, or never switch it on for the Linux users which is me half of the time.

I suspect the EIP is also another vehicle to make the game more accessible to new players, something a bit friendlier than the current splash screen, but how far do we change the game until it's something else?

The EIP is an unnecessary frivolity and I see no valid need for it.

Winter Expansion has a Name?

2011-11-09T06:00:00.000+10:00

That name could be Crucible!

Or it might not be.

Evidence!

The real deal or Photoshop?

Who knows!!

Of all the names it could be this one would be suitable considering the issues of the past few months.

The Winter expansion aka Crucible (?) could create the alloy that forges a stronger Eve Online.

Or it's just an excuse to write some corny crap and feed the voracious blog for another day!

POS Polishing

2011-11-08T06:00:00.000+10:00

The Winter expansion juggernaut of announcements rolls on!

Today we have some news of a revamp to POS's.

If you have to deal with a POS or two then after reading the dev blog you'll be saying stuff like "Holy Crap!" and "OMFG!".

First cab off the rank is the introduction of Fuel Blocks for the four races as seen below.

Jello shots for POS's

Now looking at that image I don't know which Fuel Block is for which race, so spending thirty seconds in The Gimp I came up with this...

Mmmmmm yummy Cherenkov radiation!

Much easier, moving on.

"Setup/Takedown Timers

The current timers for anchoring, onlining, offlining and unanchoring structures are suboptimal from a player-experience perspective, so we optimized them.

Here are some fun changes:
Jump Bridges now take 30 seconds to anchor (but are otherwise unchanged)
Cynosural Generators now take 10 seconds to anchor and unanchor (but are otherwise unchanged)
Cyno Jammers are unchanged
CSAAs and CSMAs now take 30 seconds to anchor, 3 seconds to online/offline and 10 minutes to unanchor
Turrets, launchers, EW batteries and hardeners now take 5 seconds to anchor/unanchor and 120 seconds to online/offline
Every other structure not already mentioned in this list now takes 5 seconds to anchor/unanchor and 3 seconds to online/offline."

One of the biggest pains with a POS is setting it up, changing the setup etc etc, apart from being able to queue the changes (which you cannot currently do and is not planned at this stage) these timing changes will make the process much nicer.

"The CPU and Power load will no longer have any impact on your fuel needs - all towers now need the same amount of fuel, regardless of configuration."

This is also a great help as the POS will use the same amount of fuel whatever is on, pretty much a high security space buff as corps/alliances can just leave the guns online outside of war decs, and then if you attract a war dec you don't have to online anything, another time saver.

The fuel cost to run a POS will be about the same or a bit less than it currently is. Initially we'll see the typical cost spike as the supply chain gets into gear but later on it'll calm down.

One of the issues at the moment however is the implementation for the more pimped out towers like a Dread Guristas small/medium/large tower. Previously those types of towers would use less fuel than the T1 options and thus be cheaper to run. Come the "Winter" expansion (give it a proper name already!) they will not be cheaper to run, but will have a larger fuel bay so you'll be able to fuel them for perhaps 45 days instead of 28 days.

This solution is sub-optimal and needs to be changed, one suggestion is to also increase CPU and power for those sorts of towers. We'll see what happens.

One item I didn't mention so far is the removal of passwords from jump bridges and relying on standings, a common sense change that was long in coming.

To wrap this up.

This is a positive change, the math is pretty sound though some people on the forum need to double check their figures before rage posting. I'm concerned about my Dread Guristas tower regarding the fuel cost/usage but considering it's sitting in a hanger at the moment, and has been for a year or more, I can't be too upset.

I'd like to see the Fuel Blocks be a different colour like I illustrated above, this would avoid the situation we had for years with BPO and BPC confusion.

It remains to be seen how the rabble will accept the change but for me it's mostly a good solid move forward.

Rokh me Baby!

2011-11-07T06:00:00.000+10:00

CCP have released an image of the last ship to be released in the "Winter" expansion, assuming no Christmas useless ship is given away.

The Caldari Naga as seen below in all its glory.

The interesting thing about this ship is it was imagined as a battleship by the creator David L. CCP have decided re-purpose the design as a battlecruiser and make it similar to the Rokh.

The Rokh is one of those ships that has a dual purpose, a jack of all trades but master of none, so therefore isn't used very much.

During a roam, which are typically a couple of hours punctuated by short, sharp fights, if we see a Rokh in space we'll more often than not comment on it.

Common they are not.

So hopefully CCP will not be unleashing a battlecruiser sized Rokh upon the population of New Eden.

Nebulae!

CCP are re-vamping the look of the universe and are updating the nebulae effects.

I'm concerned they are going towards the shiny and not portraying space as a vast dull emptiness to cater for the ADHD, oh look a shiny thing, crowd.

One of my fellow bloggers has done the wonderful service of cruising around the Sisi test server and has posted some images, view them here.

Begone Mentor I want an Oracle!

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000+10:00

Seemingly another day, another new announcement from CCP.

This time it's the new Amarr battlecruiser formally known as the Mentor in the Deviant Art competition, it's new name is the Oracle.

Stay for the beauty, ignore the stats.

Now this ship screams Amarr, when I saw the Mentor (now Oracle) as part of the competition it looked like it was already in Eve Online, obviously it isn't yet but it just seems to belong.

As usual CCP have not released any firm stats on the ship yet, some figures have turned up from the test server but these are subject to change, and have at least once from their first appearance.

Official Oracle CCP image that is subject to change

Only one more ship to be revealed and less then two months until 2012, but finally...

Evidence that huffing paint may be more of a problem at CCP than they know

Use CFL's!

2011-11-01T06:00:00.000+10:00

It's been a long time coming but CCP have decided to once again walk along the tight rope balancing on one side a leopard and the other some hand grenades, they've announced a Gallente re-balance.

The number one item that caught my attention.

"Reduced Capacitor usage:
All hybrid turrets: -30% capacitor use"

No longer will my ships have the capacitor of a three year old iPhone 3G, gone will be the days of the mouse pointer dance of imminent death as I have to tightly manage power usage.

Well not quite but it will go some way towards improving the terrible power usage of Gallente ships.

"Power efficiency! Bah!! Yeah we've heard of it.", a probable quote from a Roden Shipyards ship designer.

"Tracking Speed Increase:
All blaster turrets: +20% to Tracking speed"

So you mean my guns might now know where the enemy is and not where they were? Nice!

"Damage Increase:
All railgun turrets: +10% to Damage modifier"

Will people shift away from the Hurricane towards the Brutix or even the Myrmidon?

I'm not sure but at least Gallente battlecruisers could be considered as a viable option once again.

Some other stuff in the linked dev blog including a small CPU usage reduction to hybrid turrets, a small speed boost to most Gallente ships, inertia modifications, etc etc.

I assume this will be a first step from CCP towards balancing the Gallente quarter of the universe, and these quoted numbers are probably provisional, but it is a very welcome first step.

Maybe, just maybe at some point in the future a suggestion to bring along a Gallente ship on a roam will not be met with derision and scorn.

We can but dream.

Hideous Theory Crafting Exercise

2011-10-29T06:00:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we reached the final milestone of the Eve is Real desperate support/advertisement/propaganda program and received the final 2000 Aurum.

Moving on...

An image of the new Gallente fast battlecruiser has been released, as seen below.

It will be called the Talos, and was previously known as the Seraphim from the Eve Online: Create a starship contest from seemingly a very long time ago.

As with the first release no actual details are available of the ships capabilities apart from its apparent ability to masquerade as a non-Gallente ship.

With luck a coloured and rendered in game version of the Talos will look more curvy and Gallente.

Already the forums are aflame with speculation and counter speculation in a hideous theory crafting exercise that can only end in frustration, but it keeps them busy.

Quote:

"The Talos excels as an “in your face glass cannon”. It will be a particularly dangerous blaster boat, especially with the hybrid rebalancing kicking in at the time of its birth. Think of it as a smaller, more expendable Vindicator, if you will."

The Vindicator is an expensive ship, but this now potentially shows the new battlecruisers should be less expensive than a Vindicator.

It'll be interesting to see where the price for these things finally rests, and the impact it will have on the current darlings of the PVP set, the Drake and Hurricane.

Q and A

2011-10-28T06:00:00.000+10:00

Courtesy of the Eve Online forums.

Q1. Are you really asking why people shoot miners?

Q2. Really?

Q3. I am though, why kill a miner?

A. Why do people aim for the fat kid during dodgeball? Because he's slow, and easy to hit. It also makes a nice "WHAP" sound.

Crash Reporting

2011-10-27T06:00:00.000+10:00

This morning CCP are reporting, via the rather unfortunately named CCP Redundancy, all about the new crash notification feature.

Why this wasn't in the game years ago is a wonder but here we are in the year of the Metal Rabbit (!) and CCP can now fix more of those pesky bugs.

Behold a graph!

Looks like they have a few to fix, but knowledge is power!

Progress!!!

Some quotes;

"We’re noticing a number of graphics driver crashes. As a general bit of advice, we’d suggest making sure that you are running on the most up to date stable driver releases from your GPU vendor."

"The start that we’ve made isn’t hugely impressive - we have a lot of catching up to do, but we’re actually able to start that and judge both our progress and the results as we patch Eve over time."

This can only be a step forward for CCP and Eve Online. The increase in crash reporting and subsequent fixes will do much to improve the experience for every starship jockey.

Unless you're a tinfoil hat wearer of course.

He's Behind You!

2011-10-26T06:00:00.000+10:00

In Star Wars it's The Empire (or The Rebellion from a certain point of view), in Firefly it's the Reavers, in Doctor Who it's the Daleks (amongst others), in Rocky and Bullwinkle it's....well you get the idea.

In every narrative where a side is perceived as "good" their must also be a "bad", as you struggle to have one without the other. Sometimes it is quite obvious who the bad guys are, sometimes not.

Real life, at least on a world stage, mirrors this with recent baddies being paraded on our television screens on a nightly basis for consumption in-between shows of Worlds Worst , reality this or that, and generic police or medical shows.

In Eve Online we currently have Goonswarm, perceived as many to be the ultimate of the bad. They are led by The Mittani, or Mittens if you prefer, who is half a step away from completing the transformation to megalomaniac with the required long haired white cat as is the EU requirement.

Those cats must shed terribly as Summer approaches.

Recently Goonswarm have pushed the prices of some items to previously unheard of amounts. This is seen as evil and dastardly by the general populace, but what if you sell those items, especially if you're not in Goonswarm?

You'll think that all your in game prayers have been answered at once and provided they don't gank your mining barge where is the harm!

However I know of players who have left the game, or taken a long break, because their mining barge was ganked, players who have left null sec due to the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of massed fleets, players who have more or less given up due to the increasing hold they have over the game and potentially CCP.

Do I think that Goonswarm has a hold over CCP? No I don't but they certainly influence them, especially in these times of weak subscription numbers and the beginning of the return journey to greatness, but everybody influences CCP to some extent or another.

I'm not a fan of Goonswarm and especially not of "The Mittani".

However the game would be poorer without them.

No Real Reason

2011-10-25T06:00:00.000+10:00

Except it's another very nice ship design from Baranha, enjoy.

Navigator Says No!

2011-10-24T06:00:00.000+10:00

Seemingly confirmed as not one of the upcoming new battlecruisers the Naru-Kami is still a nice design IMHO and well worth a look.

The description by the author has a very Terran Trade Authority feel about it also.

Ahh nostalgia you are a cruel mistress.

All Hail our New Glass Cannon Overlords

2011-10-22T06:00:00.000+10:00

Title shamelessly ripped from Efraya of the Eve Online forums!

Today, or a recent day very much like it, CCP have released some more information about the new ships we'll see in the "Winter" expansion.

"We couldn‘t just give the Minmatar a new ship and leave the other factions out (NPC military escalation doesn’t work like that), so, in the spirit of mutually assured destruction, each of the factions have sent their best engineers and scientists to the drafting boards and will also be rolling out a new tier 3 battlecruiser."

Post is here.

In what appears to be from left field the new battleships that were coming are now going to be battlecruisers, but able to fit battleship weapons probably with some sort of power and CPU percentage reduction for the large pews pews.

This was not expected but it will throw the cat amongst the pigeons!

Right now the greatest minds in the game, and Goonswarm, will be scrambling to try and figure out the implications this may mean to their hellcat, smellycat, dogcat fleets.

As yet no hard information has been released, and no other images for the remaining races so any speculation is just that.

Enjoy your speculation theory fitting discussions!

Awesome Damage Control

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000+10:00

In was is possibly an attempt at damage control after the last couple of days CCP have released some more information about the Winter (Summer for me) expansion.

"In the forthcoming Winter expansion, we’re adding a much-requested piece of additional information to capsule killmails: They will now list the fitted implants of the unfortunate victim."

Link Here

Also;

"CCP Navigator wrote:
Let me give you guys a little more information on what is coming. Starting next week we will be producing a series of 'In Development' video blogs which will look at what the various teams are planning for Winter 2011. I want to stress that these videos will not contain release dates as we are aiming to provide a lot of stuff and do not want to commit to a date we cannot keep. These will include:

Engine trails - Yes, that's right we are adding engine trails to EVE and we will show the work in progress so far.

New ships - Recently we featured a shot of the Tornado, the Deviant Art contest winner, on the EVE Facebook page. We were not happy with just giving out one ship so we will be showcasing all four new ships.

New nebulae - These new background sin the EVE universe are stunningly beautiful and will add to the immersion and feeling of being in deep space.

Team BFF - This team should be Best Features Fullstop and CCP Soundwave will give an overview of what his team has in store. Capital ship balancing, balancing hybrids, assault ships bonuses and much more will be added during winter.

Customer Relations - The Lead GM's will talk about changes to how petitions are handled, more options for Stuck petitions and how we aim to deal with your issues as fast as possible.

We are not just going to stop there. We will bring you more video blogs about what is in development for EVE Online."

To borrow a saying that all the cool kids are using, this is full of win!

Being accurate however it should say CCP are re-introducing engine trails as they were in the game a very long time ago (3-4 years?).

From what we've seen so far and with more news to come the "Winter" expansion looks like it will be worthy of the name.

Winter is Coming

2011-10-21T06:00:00.000+10:00

and it might be bringing at least one new ship with it...

Or it will be a bad haircut, a guy smelling his finger while wearing a questionable jumper, a Yoda doll or a strangely crinkled left hand.

The Start of a New Beginning?

2011-10-20T11:07:00.001+10:00

CCP released the news today they are downsizing staff by twenty percent worldwide, but it seems a sizable percentage will be in Atlanta.

I've posted various links below but the main victims appear to be staff at White Wolf, some people working on World of Darkness (WOD) and CCP community staff. Annoyingly it has been reported that CCP Zymurgist is one of the redundancies which if true is a lost contact for me and also the blogging community.

People losing their jobs is never a good thing, for them. However this has the possibility of strengthening the core product which is Eve Online by slowing down development on WOD by re-purposing staff or saving resources.

Cutting a sizable percentage of the community team can only be seen as a cost reduction measure as it reduces contact with bloggers and reduced (or no !) policing of the forums cannot be a good thing. Now bloggers will be more in the dark and they've handed the keys of the asylum to the inmates?

Not a great plan CCP.

CCP has once again stated their renewed focus on the core product which is Eve Online, while also saying DUST514 will ship as normal and development will continue at a reduced pace on WOD.

You can see in the below links some of the industry reaction, while a percentage of it is just news release regurgitation, it's clear the move from CCP is being seen as a company in financial trouble.

However CCP has time to correct matters.

Should they actually concentrate on Eve Online, fix the bugs, release new content rather than just talk about doing it, then subscription numbers "should" rise again. It's my belief that most Eve Online players never quit the game, they just take a rest to rejoin at a later date.

The full release of DUST514 in approx July 2012, with private testing beginning in a couple of months, in conjunction with Sony will (I hope) be a winner for CCP, especially if promoted by Sony. It remains to be seen if the novelty of the Eve Online and DUST514 games existing in the same world will prove to be a draw and make DUST514 stand above the current glut of FPS games.

To many the downsizing news will be unexpected and shocking but in this climate it wasn't totally unexpected and it may help improve the game we love.

--------------------------------------------
CCP's announcement http://www.eveonline.com/news.asp?a=single&nid=4769&tid=1

White Wolf announcement http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1195521#post1195521

Message and farewell from CCP Fallout http://www.almaroc.com/?p=1896

A yet to be confirmed partial list of sacked employees:

(Link)

Some industry reporting:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/10/19/ccp-layoffs-affect-20-of-worldwide-staff-company-focusing-on-e/
http://www.develop-online.net/news/38907/100-jobs-struck-by-CCP-layoffs
http://www.funfastgame.com/news/33965/eve-online-dev-laying-off-100.html
http://raptr.com/RaQin_Whaitera/news/4e9eec6bb933ca402e/ccp-layoffs-affect-20-of-worldwide-staff-company-focusing-on-eve
http://www.shacknews.com/article/70693/ccp-downsizing-20-to-focus-on-eve-online

By the time you read this...

2011-10-20T06:00:00.000+10:00

It will probably be gone but I noticed on Steam this morning that Eve Online Incarna was listed in the specials section.

This has most likely happened before but I haven't seen it.

Is this a good thing? It sure is as new players attracted to the game, even with the issues it currently has, cannot be a bad thing.

Unless they start spamming local in Jita, post anything in general discussion, become a member of Goonswarm, like Mittens (The Mittani) in any way or equip disco laser fits.

So it's probably a good thing.

Dirty Laundry

2011-10-18T22:34:00.001+10:00

Darius III, a member of the CSM, decided it would be a good idea to air some allegations against him in public via General Discussion on the Eve Online forums.

The text is below:
------------------------
#1Posted: 2011.10.18 11:53

I have been accused of breaking the Non Disclosure Agreement that I signed when I was elected CSM. I will be addressing that accusation in this thread and hopefully shed some light on what really happened.

At no time did I ever leak anything to anyone. I have never shared NDA protected Skype logs, nor any information therein nor have I shared anything from the CSM official forums. In fact I do not answer many questions from corp members, friends or any media unless I am 110% certain that my answer is NDA safe.

The 'evidence' that people use claiming I broke the NDA shows my innocence. The alleged leak shows the name"mittani" in chatlogs. Notice the lowercase 'm'? If you have ever had a discussion with me in any chat-take note that I always capitalize peoples names, locations etc.

I understand that this does not "prove" that I did not leak anything, however it is stronger evidence than that which has been used to indict me.

I ask you to apply the same standard of evidence to my defense as used in my prosecution.

What really happened? I honestly do not know, but I have taken every step I can to disprove the allegations. I think that either:

A: There never was a leak and the whole thing was manufactured, or

B: I was set up to be made to look guilty by another member of the CSM. (Vile Rat is a lazy typist who doesn't bother to capitalize peoples names.....)

Why would someone do this, you may ask? Well it is public knowledge that I am Goons public enemy #1 ever since I trolled them regarding "Freeport Delve".
http://www.evenews24.com/2011/09/23/meta-gaming-darius-iii-brix-deceives-goonswarm-leadership-into-buying-the-fall-of-delve-amidst-propaganda-war/

After which they dedicate two paragraphs to me in one of their internal releases:
http://www.evenews24.com/2011/09/28/endie-goonswarm-federation-alliance-update-september-28th/

Now they have wardecced my Alliance and sent down fleets numbering 500+ pilots to take our space. Sounds like 'They Mad Bro'
If I had leaked anything I would be a man and step up and admit my error. I knew I had pissed GS off but never expected them to stoop to such lowly tactics.

GM Note: Please do not lock this thread as it is relevant and there are @100 posts in various Eve-O forums claiming I breached the NDA. As long as those posts are allowed to stand-in the interests of fair play-my rebuttal also should stand.

To the players of Eve: I apologize for being enough of a douche that people would actually believe that I would do something like this and thus, making someone think that they could frame me in such a manner. D3

------------------------

This can only end well.......

Blog Banter 29: Immersion

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000+10:00

Blog Banter 29: Immersion

"EVE Online is renowned for its depth. Its backstory, gameplay and social aspects are all qualities that draw players in. What does immersion in EVE Online mean to you?"

Losing myself in the moment, losing track of time.

For me this has not happened much in Eve Online, the only times I recall have been during PVP, once when I was trying to evacuate a battleship from null sec (it survived) and the other time flying a cruiser and we ambushed an enemy battlecruiser gang (they died).

Just flying around space doing "stuff", for me, doesn't provide the total immersion experience. Don't get me wrong I quite like doing those things but on the whole the outside distractions of life, the universe and everything just prove too strong.

I must say that comparing the immersion experience to past games I've played Eve Online is by far the leader.

However...

Incarna, in particular the single Captains Quarters we now have, is a massive immersion breaker, before I switched it off every time I entered that room the glaring oddity of my surroundings and the general uselessness of the current concept just screamed WRONG WRONG WRONG!

So for that and performance reasons it is now off.

Last night I quickly explained to a corp member why the various NPC corps exists in the areas they do, and while doing that also had to explain some of the back story, which in Eve Online is pretty deep and varied.

Sometime I wonder what it must be like for the new player who is seeing New Eden for the first time, learning how to navigate the dangerous and murky waters of the known universe, Jita and general discussion on the forums.

Does Eve Online have immersion? Yes it does, but your experience may vary.

CCP, Lies and Duct Tape

2011-10-12T06:00:00.000+10:00

Recently CCP reminded the PS3 and gaming audience in general that DUST514 is due for a Summer 2012 (Winter here) release.

Brandon Laurino from CCP was "interviewed" by James Gallagher who is the blog manager from SCEE, a part of Sony.

The text of the article is here.

The article is worth reading, also the comments, but lets look at a quote from one of the questions.

"The EVE universe is comprised of three experiences: one is the classic EVE Online play, “flying in space” or what we call FIS; there’s WIS or “walking in stations”, where you can now get out of your ship and explore the interiors of space stations; and the final piece is DUST 514 and we’ve nicknamed that SIF, or “shooting in face”. "

Now lets drill down into that quote, "or “walking in stations”, where you can now get out of your ship and explore the interiors of space stations".

This, and I'm being generous, is 95% a lie, a fabrication, at the very least it's very very misleading.

Currently, and for the next six to twelve months at least, you cannot leave your Captains Quarters.

Very soon we should have the other racial quarters as we are currently stuck with Minmater decor whatever station you're in.

You cannot "explore the interiors of space stations".

The existing quarters (the other three have not been released as yet) provides nearly zero extra function to the game. It looks like a room designed by somebody with no interior designs skills.

I cannot leave the room so where is my food? Some cereal packets on the shelf? My bed looks like some plywood with a sheet over it, the same can be said for the couch.

The big screens display the same monotonous information, I have no ability to change this information except via a simple hack to insert my own videos, which take an age to convert out of game.

Considering the interview was in the main about DUST514 why does CCP try to deceive potential gamers, does this Brandon not play Eve Online?

Does all his information come from press releases which seem to reflect the future imaginary vision of Eve and not the reality?

I must admit I switched off the Captains Quarters a while ago.

The motherboard in my Linux machine died, so I bought a new one, reconfigured the computer and took the opportunity to re-install Ubuntu after changing much of the hardware. I've reverted to the 8500GT display card from the GT240 it had as another machine in the house benefits more from the GT240.

While I was configuring Eve Online after re-installing the speed of the Captains Quarters was poor, so as a trial I switched it off and was then amazed at the performance increase (performance while in space was already quite good) and the massive speed up of the in game functions while docked up.

Seeing this I have also switched it off on my main machine (which has an 8800GT) and once again the speed increase is stunning.

Will it be switched on again?

Not likely as what's the point?

Eve Dark Elf

2011-10-10T06:00:00.000+10:00

Obviously another glitch from the character creator or customiser.

This one was posted by Milton Davis in the forums.

A race in Eve should look like this.

48 Hours

2011-10-07T06:00:00.000+10:00

A deluge of CCP contact in the past couple of days.

It started off with CCP Zymurgist sending all the bloggers a mail stating they'll do more in the future to promote the blogs, details to be announced in the near future.

I see that as a double edged sword, more readers would be nice, but the horror of hordes descending upon a small blog like locusts on a farmers field gives me some pause.

Then overnight we have the dev blogs from CCP Hellmar and CCP Zulu.

Linked for your viewing pleasure.

Paraphrasing CCP Hellmar's blog it essentially says that he screwed up, lost focus, tried to do too much etc etc. While I believe it to be a genuine message we know from bitter experience that actions mean much more than words so we'll wait and see. However it's a good reboot to build upon.

The more interesting of the two dev blogs is the one from CCP Zulu, showing my racial bias I'll cherry pick the announced features for the Winter (Summer for me) expansion.

Hybrid weapons balancing

Factional warfare

Assault ships

Capital ship balancing

New T2 modules

New EWAR-Drones

T2 Rigs manufacturing

Time dilation

So in order we may see Gallente, especially short range ships, become a force once again. Couldn't come soon enough as rust proofing my Minmater ships is proving expensive.

Factional warfare re-balance, or addition, or something? Many people moan about factional warfare so at a guess I'd say CCP will make it more relevant?

Assault ships! Even more cryptic than the above. A re-balance maybe?

Capital ship balancing could not come soon enough. Blobs of titans, supercaps, etc swarming around the seedier areas of New Eden (I don't mean Jita) has ruined null sec warfare. Re-balance the merde out of them I say.

New T2 modules and EWAR-Drones. Cool.

T2 Rigs manufacturing. Well the only way this can go is to make them cheaper to make.

Finally we come to time dilation. To combat against players making the blog ever bigger it will slow the combat down intentionally and making sure most if not all of the server calls are processed properly. Your twelve second module may take twenty four seconds to activate but it will (should) activate every time, compared to the lottery it is now. Will this work? Time will tell.

So the "Winter" expansion will be with us "well before Christmas" according to the dev blog.

In my land of houses with no chimneys, highways named "Bruce" and local Santa's almost dying from heat stroke it cannot come soon enough.

War Dec Twilight Zone

2011-10-05T06:00:00.000+10:00

Recently, not long after I re-joined Walking Ghost Phase, we were involved in a war declaration with a small industry corporation.

We assumed it would be the normal thing. We'd camp them in station, they would do what they could while we were logged off, maybe try and catch a straggler of ours, etc etc.

Little did we know how strange it was about to become.

We knew most of their names so we knew when the active members were online.

A couple were online and we tracked him to a high sec system, but couldn't find him in the system.

I was coming back from many jumps away in the frigate fitted as a taxi, so no real help.

As I jumped into the system he was in I saw him at the gate, I warped away quickly but relayed the information to a corp mate who had a PVP ship, he arrived at the gate I had just left.

To find the war target still sitting there, AFK mind you, in a Caracal Navy Issue.

It died and so did the pod.

Sometime in the next twenty four hours we received a complaint mail from the war target angry that we had destroyed an AFK ship.

You have got to be kidding!!!

The following day the same corp member destroys one of their haulers, a Badger Mark II, again doing nothing to avoid us, again the pod was killed.

Then finally I'm able to get in on the action as the same guy who was flying the hauler has been located in a noob ship, the Ibis, I find him auto piloting to a gate and that ship dies exactly one hour after the hauler did. Once again he is podded.

Two days pass.

The same corp mate who destroyed the Caracal and Badger destroys the noob ship and pod of Ibis man once again, but this time we know where his clone medical facility is.

So I camp the station fully expecting him to sit there for hours and hours.

He undocks in a noob ship.

I destroy it and pod him.

He undocks again in another Ibis.

I destroy it and his pod.

He undocks a third time!

I once again destroy the Ibis but this time he makes an attempt to warp away in the pod and gets away.

I'm in close pursuit behind him to the same gate he warped to, to find he's autopiloting the pod which I then destroy.

He seems to give up for the day and logs off.

Three more days pass, they've been offline for almost all of that time. We spot one of them in a system in an unknown ship, the other we discover soon, coming through a gate in a Drake.

We ignore the Drake for the moment as we have bigger fish to fry.

Using some probe magic we discover the war target name in a Noctis, the Drake has already left system by this point. The prober warps in, points the target and destroys it before I even arrive. The Noctis made no attempt to safe up and it would seem his comrade did not warn him of our obvious intention.

Not long after this the war dec spluttered to a halt as shooting fish in a barrel has zero appeal for me.

The CQ, TISM and Angry Rabbits

2011-10-03T06:00:00.000+10:00

According to this dev blog inserting your own choice of videos onto the CQ big screen is now legal. So since the day of this announcement (such a liar - Roku) I've had the below rotating from time to time amongst the ads for RMT and other stuff I have no interest in.

You are unlikely to be eaten by a Grue

2011-09-30T06:00:00.000+10:00

This is fairly amusing, and I've been around computers long enough to have played some of the text adventure games back in the day to appreciate the effort expended.

A New Contender

2011-09-28T06:00:00.000+10:00

Previously the "award" for the most interesting use of the new avatar customisation tool was Rooli Pelaaja seen here to the left.

He still makes me chuckle.

Past contenders have included the likes of Alotta Baggage, seen here to the left also.

Note the subtle use of makeup.

Now we have a new contender.

Behold Morganta!

Witness the makeup, marvel at the tattoos and wince at the piercings!

Throw in some major forum whoring and we have a challenger to the crown currently held by Rooli.

Who'll be the judge?

/me shrugs

Ten for a Pound

2011-09-26T06:00:00.000+10:00

These hoodies are out of control!

But what is the secret handshake?

I know the password, it'll be "swordfish", it's always "swordfish".

Fish mongers have an automatic entry to all secret societies as they know all the passwords.

Getting up to Speed

2011-09-20T06:00:00.000+10:00

So I left the corporation and alliance, the magic had gone to be replaced with inaction and drudgery, a fair percentage of that from me.

I rejoined my own corporation, I was happy to see me again.

Once all my various characters had finished with the equivalent of an intergalactic kegger we got down to business.

Re-organisation!

Over the coming days, weeks and years I will describe in minute detail what was required to rebuild myself and the corporation around me.

Or not.

I was able to change a few things and bring some order to the chaos.

Happiness reigned once again, all was well.

I have a few hundred people on my contact list for various reasons, so a fairly continuous display of people logging in and out of the game appears in the bottom right hand side of the screen.

Then a long disconnected real life friends name appeared, took me a second to realise what it said.

We chatted for a bit to find out he's once again given up on that MMO whose name shall not be spoken, and come back to Eve Online.

Cool!

Little did I know this would lead to a stampede of returning old friend players, all hell bent on making me take on a position of responsibility once again.

We even had an honest to god recruit from the in game advert service.

I was stunned!!

One night I was sitting there doing some corporation organisation and then it hit me.

Shit I'm a CEO again!!!

Dammit!

2011-09-04T06:00:00.002+10:00

It's a dark day when I agree with most of what Mittens (aka The Mittani) has written. While he may be a megalomaniac with an ego the size of a planet some good points are made at the beginning and end of the post.

Link

The Walking Ponzi Dead

2011-08-15T06:00:00.005+10:00

Yosagi emerges from the fog of the past couple of weeks, looks around and is not surprised at the decay.

Being kicked around for two weeks by "not the flu but we don't really know" I have finally found some enthusiasm to post again.

Rejoice!

Logging in and also checking DOTLAN shows the continual decline of the alliance. Another corporation left, this time with no fake goodbye. Usually we are sent this...

"Hey guys it's not you it's us. We just need some time to re-structure the corporation. At some point in the future we want to re-join the alliance once we have sorted out our issues. Etc, etc, etc"

Two days later they join another alliance, often the mob that we've been shooting for the past amount of time.

Disappointing.

In other news another scam has burst upon New Eden from the guys at Phaser Inc, this time to the tune of one trillion ISK, or roughly fifty to fifty five thousand dollars (they did the math for me this time), have a look at evenews24.com for the details.

It's about twenty percent higher than the last big scam, it was a Ponzi of course and many people in the market channel suspected as much, but they still took money from thousands of players.

To be honest it's not as big a deal as some people are making it out to be, it's a scam, it's not much more than the last "big" scam, and it's all in Eve Online.

I don't care much about it, but then again I saw it as an obvious scam and lost nothing.

Times are Changing

2011-07-31T06:00:00.000+10:00

So for want of a better description lets call it the "flu".

I had that, got over it.

Then my computer died, seems to be a motherboard, which of course you cannot source anymore. I have a spare computer but that took some time to setup.

Then the "flu" Mk II "This Time It's Personal!" decided to rear its ugly head and almost flattened me, I still have it.

During my infrequent visits to my remaining computer I've been keeping an eye on the Dotlan figures for our alliance.

Our numbers have halved, corporations have left, sovereignty has halved, as have outposts.

On the plus side the alliance still has three outposts, eight sovereignty systems, seven corporations and five hundred and eighteen members.

Is this enough to sustain the alliance through this rough patch and start building again on the other side?

I don't know, we'll see.

What I do know is other alliances and corporations are actively trying to poach members, I've had two offers so far from interested parties, I'm sure other people would have had more.

We live in interesting times.

Moving

2011-07-23T06:00:00.004+10:00

We had a nice home once, but we should have known it was temporary.

In our ignorance we destroyed the local NPC's, formed fleets, roamed against our enemies.

Things were good.

Over time the nature of our enemies changed, moving from a combination of colours to only one.

Our kills against them grew but also did their strength.

Soon our structures were under attack, enemy super capitals and titans seem strewn around our home systems.

It's all happened so quickly.

The leadership calls for evacuation, many of the individual members have already started moving their gear out.

My ships and equipment appeared stuck in our staging station, camped by hundreds of red ships, seemingly never to leave.

Twenty four hours later and the systems were clear, I have a narrow window of opportunity. Myself and some others move our assets to Fountain while other pilots, more fortunate in having already moved or even lost their assets, run a fleet to protect the on-going evacuation.

Arrived panting and exhausted on the shores of Fountain with the red hordes once again closing in on our previous home in Delve, thankful anything of value is now safer than it was.

Rest, re-arm, re-load, undock.

Escapist Micro Transactions

2011-07-17T06:00:00.005+10:00

The Escapist : Extra Credits : Microtransactions

I agree with most if not all of this.

It's stunning, in hindsight, how badly CCP managed to screw up micro transactions.

They need to release plenty of low cost items, worth a few dollars at most.

Then a gift to the player base of a small amount of Aurum, both as a sort of
apology and a way to kick start the player experience of Aurum and the Noble Exchange.

This should happen in the next few weeks at the most, I'd be very surprised if it did.

Yosagi Gets Angry

2011-07-16T06:00:00.001+10:00

We had a Call To Arms (CTA) tonight to deal with some timers that were coming out. We expected a fight, we certainly got one, they outnumbered us and outclassed us so we left the field.

A couple of pilots questioned this as they wanted to throw their ships on the pyre for some unknown reason.

Morale is very important in an alliance. If morale drops, pilots logging in also drops and soon you have many less systems because you cannot defend them with whatever logs in.

Picking your fights, finding the fleets you have a chance against can help morale, not to mention the logistics chain.

Constantly replacing ships can be tough the deeper into null security space an alliance is. This is also usually a cost to the individual pilots, it certainly is in most cases for us.

Maybe the larger alliances can afford to lose fleet after fleet to a superior enemy on the day, but the smaller alliances just cannot afford this in lost morale or ISK.

When a CTA is called in our corporation the tax rate is set to 100% and reduced back to normal level after the CTA is done, this is reasonably normal across New Eden.

Tonight we had a corporation member who was in high security space, we are supposed to be a PVP corporation, asked us to reduce the tax rate so he could shoot "rats" and he "doesn't gave a f**k" about the CTA. Membership gold right there.

Then another guy pipes up about wanting to leave his seven alt's logged in during the day! You have got to be kidding me!!

Having to explain why that's a bad thing is just stunning! In a carebear mission running corporation sure that would be fine, but a PVP one? The corp needs to know who can be called upon on short notice, if Mrs Palmer and her daughters are off thumping out some knuckle babies this doesn't help the corp when a red fleet enters without knocking!

The need to explain this stuff probably means it'll be never understood by the pilot on the receiving end.

I'm getting a drink.

I Was There!

2011-07-15T06:00:00.000+10:00

From GU Comics by:Woody Hearn

http://gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20110707

References http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxSyv4LC1c which is the latest promo video from CCP.

The Door!

2011-07-13T06:00:00.005+10:00

Continuing with the theme of the Captains Quarters and Incarna we have a spoof video focusing on the mysterious door.

Japan and the end of DT?

2011-07-10T06:00:00.003+10:00

As mentioned previously downtime (DT) is annoying the hell out of me, and the subsequent long DT's for patching.

However the light at the end of the tunnel may not be a train after all.

CCP have announced the addition of Japan to the Eve Online empire with a localised client.

"Localized services for Japanese players will enable them to access the game in their native language through the Tranquility server, which currently plays host to over 350,000 subscribers from around the world in three languages: English, German and Russian."

Now when I read the dev blog quickly I assumed, incorrectly, that Japan would have their own server like China does. However while I was ice skating (true) I remembered that China has its own server for political gaming reasons and not technical ones.

So I read the announcement again and sure enough the new players from Japan will be added to our server, Tranquility, to eventually form their own Titan and Super Carrier juggernauts moving through the universe laying waste to all before them.

Before they become our inevitable overlords one thing has to change, and that is DT.

In Australia (+10 TZ) DT happens at 9pm, later for those states that have the sanity to observe Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the Summer months. Japan is in the +9 time zone and does not seem to observe DST, so their DT will be at 8pm, every night of the year.

This I believe will be unacceptable for the new Japanese gamers, Nexon the gaming partner in Japan, and CCP themselves.

Way back in the mist of time, in the heady days of optimism and whimsy, or late October 2010, CCP posted this dev blog.

"As a part of the Carbon initiative, cluster management is being re-architected. It is our goal that sometime in the not too distant future, EVE Online will have no daily downtime. How awesome will that be!"

Now I'm not sure how far into the future the "not too distant future" is but I hope it's soon and not soon (tm).

So what I put to you is this.

In the near future Japanese players will be able to experience the Eve Online universe in their own native language so it will be available to more than the English fluent ones, which combined with the Nexon partnership will greatly boost Eve Online pilots in Japan.*

With their entry of Japan to the Eve Online universe DT will be at a bad time for a potentially lucrative new audience, thus I can see DT either being moved (hopefully earlier by several hours) or removed soon (not soon (tm)).

Australia will then be able to profit from this as now the time zone percentage of players in the +9 to +11 zones should increase, players from Japan will begin with the Noble Exchange system of hyper priced goods from the very beginning and maybe, just maybe, this will provide the critical mass to stop the Australian problem that is Eve Online's downtime.

Thus downtime will be gone, or at least gone for us.

Crazy talk?

* this paragraph edited in later after discussion in comments

Competitions Downunder

2011-07-09T06:00:00.009+10:00

CCP released this video showcasing how one pilot can make a difference in a fleet fight, also the depiction of combat is much closer to the reality than previous efforts.

Well worth a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxSyv4LC1c&feature=player_embedded

However, in the comments section, linked here, is this text;

"We'll also have two side voting contests on best still image and best video. There will be some freegraphics cards and a high end PC as prizes for those. If you live in Australia, you're not likely to be able to participate - your laws are real damn hard. We promise to do a contest just for Australia at some point though, because their laws are just that damn hard."

At first when I read it I was all "Cool we get a shout out", but then soon afterwards "What the hell!".

We are shafted with DT every night, shafted when patches are released which cause a long DT, and now shafted with competitions.

If it's hard CCP then you need to try harder!

Admittedly our population makes up less than 3% of the total Eve Online numbers but dealing with these issues because of our geography is bloody frustrating at times.

Good thing our dollar is so strong otherwise I'd be really pissed off. :-)

Moving On

2011-07-06T06:00:00.001+10:00

In the interests of underlining and moving on from the Noble Exchange fiasco, the Fearless letter and far too much computer internet space ship pilot internet rage we have the responses from CCP and also the CSM.

http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=935

I hope to never speak of this again.

The D-W Turkey Shoot

2011-07-05T06:00:00.004+10:00

It had been a busy night.

The first fleet was called to intercept a combined Brick and Morsus Mihi (MM) fleet which had passed through our home systems and was now a few jumps beyond. We managed to gather a fleet that was slightly less in number than their fleet but was clearly outclassed in quality, they had slightly more logistics and some T3 ships.

When we couldn't wait anymore the fleet left home and headed towards their last known location. After a few minutes we found where they were and camped the exit gate they had to take to get back home.

We waited.

One of their scouts jumped in, cloaked up, and kept an eye on our gate camp.

Another of their scouts jumped in and did the same, we waited some more.

MM and Brick are not known to take on enemy fleets similar in composition so we were not sure if they would engage or just run out the clock until downtime (DT) and try their luck afterwards.

Surprisingly, at least to me, our scout on the other side of the gate, the side with the red fleet, said they were jumping into us, local started filling with reds.

They broke their cloaks at pretty much the same time and started engaging us, they hit our logistics ships first. We tried hitting theirs and then switched back and forth to their DPS ships and back again, we managed to kill quite a few of their forces but the tide of the battle was increasingly against us.

I had been pretty lucky so far, only one ship targetted me and the ECM drones took care of him, once his lock was broken they then went back to ruining the day of some enemy logistics pilot. However the bad guys were dropping warp bubbles everywhere to stop us getting away, I aligned for the jump bridge as the situation was deteriorating and leaving was soon going to be a priority.

Suddenly two thirds of their fleet targets me and I start taking shield damage, with our logistics almost certainly destroyed by this stage, and I've moved out of the bubbles, I warped away to the jump bridge.

My intention was to warp back and re-enter the fight, but just as I'm about to leave warp the FC calls for the fleet to "get out", so no need to go back then.

One third of our ships survived the battle compared to about half of theirs, but we lost the ISK war.

http://aif.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=10070788

The remains of our fleet then went back home but we had an advantage. Our home is further along the path the red fleet had to take to head back towards their own home systems, so we would get another bite at the cherry. However we could once again field a full fleet but the red fleet was depleted and no reinforcements were coming.

We camped the choke point and waited.

This time they didn't risk attacking our camp and did run the clock out until DT.

DT finished a bit early and they are making a run for it, but not as a fleet, at least four of their ships are destroyed by our waiting camp going some way towards improving the result of the first battle.

We hang around for a while but it's obvious the remainder are not going to try and leave anytime soon so the fleet stands down.

Soon afterwards it's stood back up again as a T1 cruiser fleet for "goodtimes", essentially a suicide fleet.

I have a spare rupture I can throw onto the pyre, so quickly grabbing some modules to fit it out we undock and head out.

Not far away we arrive at the D-W gate, our scouts are reporting another good size fleet, this time mostly Brick Squad with a few others.

They jump through with their Drakes, we don't engage and after enough Drake's have jumped in we cross jump them into D-W where the rest of their fleet is.

Then their fleet dies.

http://aif.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=10071498
slightly polluted by some reds on the blue side of the kb

It was an intense fight that once again I survived, lets hear it for the letter Y!!!

One of the best nights I've had in Eve Online for a while.

A Mule in Eve

2011-07-03T06:00:00.001+10:00

For my two hundredth post I must, unfortunately, point out the death of a fellow blog.

A Mule in Eve has decided to call it a day, the perceived direction of CCP being the driving force.

Sorry to see you go.

Living with Incarna

2011-07-01T06:00:00.002+10:00

It has been a difficult week or so in the Eve Online universe. With Incarna finally arriving, the fallout from the Noble Exchange, the Fearless document and then fallout from communications relating to those issues, it has been a trying week.

Quite accurately most of the rage is nothing more than mob hysteria, misguided and generally impotent. Diary of a Pod Pilot has written about it at length, longer than I wish to write so have a read.

Incarna has, so far, been a disappointment. I know it's a foundation and more will be built but I think CCP should have tried very hard to introduce more than a weird little room with little form and no real function.

From my point of view lets look at the advantages and disadvantages of Incarna as it stands right now.

Advantages:
The new agent finder - this is actually pretty good, and looking at the redistribution of pilots I'd say a winner. Of course of less use in low and null security space but the bulk of pilots are in empire.

The remodeled weapons - a borderline advantage as they visually look much better (if zoomed right in) but in typical use are almost invisible. The changing of the weapon images in the hanger has really slowed me down as I now have to check each and every one to see what they are, I knew them visually before and I cannot do that now.

Disadvantages:
The Captains Quarters, at the detail level I wish to run the game at, is slower, everything I do there is slower.

Every time I enter the room the wrong design, the missing items just leap out and scream their absence, not great for the OCD.

About 20% of the time while docking the game crashes. I suspect this happens during the change over from space to the Captains Quarters. CCP have mentioned in a previous patch note this was a known issue and has been addressed. The problem is still there.

I cannot now easily open the cargo hold of my ship. I do not wish to walk here or there to do this, I just want to click a button. Now that the game runs slower my process is now to press the ship fitting button, then the hanger button (while the ship fitting is opening), and then click (subsequent to this post a corporation mate reminded me of the ALT+C shortcut to open the ships cargo) on the cargo hold button in the ship fitting tool. This is rather annoying.

The amount of long Down Times (DT) has also been very disruptive as they push the return from DT well past midnight. This has happened a few times in the past week or so, makes it very difficult.

I don't know if CCP will fix these issues, apart from the crashing problem I'd say the design direction they wish to align themselves with would not allow it.

I wonder if the new pilots in Eve Online will be as frustrated as I am?

Keeping Up Appearances

2011-06-29T06:00:00.003+10:00

The much vaunted evewire.com ( as seen below) seems to have stalled. The forums are very quiet and the last post on the front page is all the way back on the 20th of June 2011.

After the dummy spitting exit from evenews24.com and then a celebrated opening of an "alternative" it appears to have become too hard for the sites administrators.

Call in the receivers, it's done!

Meanwhile over at evenews24.com things have been improving, surprisingly, but with articles from Kesper North and other new contributors things could be on the up and up.

Finally at CCP Eve Online forums the "threadnaut" continues with over 1.1 million views for the "request to parley" article.

The user base rage, partially misguided as it is, continues.

Drama Roundup

2011-06-27T06:00:00.001+10:00

Now that I've found which computer was spewing its bile across my network I can post again.

Over at Massively they have a rather good article providing a roundup of the current drama.

Well worth reading.

Digital Exchange

2011-06-26T06:00:00.001+10:00

It has been difficult to ignore the gorilla in the room that is the Noble Exchange.

As you can see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here the reception to the micro (macro) transaction system has been less then well received by Eve Online gamers and the worldwide gaming public.

What must be remembered however is the items, while stupidly expensive, are vanity only, entirely optional, and will not be viewed by anybody but yourself for most likely a substantial time.

So is all the e-rage pointless?

Not at all as this provides a disturbing foundation to further very expensive items which at some point will not be vanity items. Once improved ships, ammo, purchase of skill points, etc, appear on the Noble Exchange then Eve Online will have become a "pay to succeed" game officially.

Un-officially with the amount of Real Money Trading (RMT) rumoured to be going on this is already the reality as some individuals, corporations, and alliances artificially inflate their destructive power.

Considering the information released in this article has been confirmed as true we may only be looking at the tip of the iceberg.

CCP have posted here with a request for dialog, the response is fifty pages of anger and rising.

CCP need to clearly say, and soon, that the Noble Exchange will never be used for anything but vanity items. The fact they have not done this at this time is clearly made the forum user base concerned and hence the thousands of angry posts.

People need to understand what the "Fearless" document is. It's a "what if" document meant to promote discussion and hence will have some far out ideas that in all likely hood will never see the light of day.

Roaming For Bricks

2011-06-25T06:05:00.000+10:00

Moving aside the current drama with the Captains Quarters, Noble Exchange and the Fearless document for a moment, last night we went on a roam.

Though to be fair it was a roam in response to a Brick fleet that passed through our home systems, we wanted to engage and destroy them.

So a fleet was called, it was slow in forming but eventually gathered enough numbers with the correct support ships. By this stage the Brick fleet had moved on, seemingly out of range of the intelligence network as they were giving us nothing.

Our composition was good so leaving our home systems we headed towards their last know location, which of course they've left by now.

Jumped the fleet around a few systems, finally gathered some good intelligence and headed for the appropriate jump bridge.

Now with the Incarna expansion the jump bridge network has changed to one per system only, so we are still figuring out where all the new jump bridges are.

The fleet jumps through to the target system, then a couple more gates and sets up the camp. Intelligence has the Brick fleet trapped in a pocket, they must exit via our camp.

We wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Finally some gate fire!

Some unlucky Brick Squad member has decided to head for bed on his own and jumped into our camped system flying a Sansha cruiser. His ship is destroyed and via the pod express system can now log off earlier than he expected two minutes ago.

Not long afterwards the Brick fleet decides to jump through the gate and into our camp.

They break cloak in dribs and drabs, none of them try to engage us and they all re-approach the gate as fast as they can and jump back through the gate.

Their fleet is about the same size as ours, we don't really understand the reasoning.

It was quite rightly pointed out that Convicted in the same situation would most likely jump through into the camp, hold cloaks, then de-cloak as one and engage. Likely losing some ships but also taking as many down with us as we could. Given the composition of the Brick fleet that tactic probably would have worked.

Then it dawned on us. They had no logistics.

No logistics!

You may have been able to fly around a couple of years ago with no logistics ships but in this modern age it's basically group suicide.

Maybe it was the Brick B or even C team?

I've been on the receiving end of a Brick hit squad and I thought they were better than this, how times change.

We waited for Brick to get their act together and fight like men, it was not too be.

Finally sick of waiting we headed home and docked up.

The effect of the current drama on good old fashioned roaming and fleet operations?

None at all.

Threadnaut!!

2011-06-25T06:00:00.005+10:00

http://eve-search.com/thread/1536065/page/1

Thinking Some More

2011-06-24T06:00:00.000+10:00

As mentioned here CCP are planning to charge commercial third party developers, web sites, etc, $99 and force them into a legal agreement.

Posted yesterday is this dev blog explaining that CCP have looked at the negative responses and are revising their intentions.

The legal agreement is the big worry, especially how restrictive it will be on freedom of speech, particularly if what I potentially write here impacts my in game character with suspensions, bans, etc.

Keeping an eye on this one.

Something Is Wrong

2011-06-23T06:00:00.002+10:00

Well I've experienced the Captains Quarters (CQ) for the first day. I found it a little distracting at first but became used to it soon enough.

The handiest thing I've discovered is how to walk properly, if you hold both your left and right mouse buttons down the avatar will walk forward and by moving the mouse you can steer.

Other experiences may differ, but on my machine I am experiencing no reduction in speed of the in station actions I want to perform, so CQ can be embraced or ignored and operational speed is not negatively impacted.

Some strange things about my CQ though.

The bed looks very uncomfortable, plus their are no sheets, covers, etc etc.

Their is no bathroom, no kitchen, I cannot change any of the channels on my screens, the door to the hanger doesn't close after me so the room, I assume, would be very cold and also insecure.

It doesn't look like a place anybody has lived in, or could live in.

Perhaps it's a subtle hint from CCP or CONCORD that I should be piloting my starship and not watching endless repeats of CONCORD's greatest hits on the big screen?

/me shrugs

In local channel somebody, I'm sorry I should have recorded the name, posted this image.


Errrrrr...

Also while mucking about with the graphics settings in Eve Online on my Ubuntu computer I managed the following.

Disturbing

Pray you don't meet her

Ending It All In The Captains Quarters

2011-06-22T06:00:00.003+10:00

One of the few advantages that living in the land of VB, Kangaroos and Burpengary is the timing of expansions for Eve Online. Generally they happen overnight and while I'm blissfully asleep desperately gathering as much unconscious time as I can the small furry rodents at CCP are busy making the expansion happen.

This one went overtime, which was not unexpected. In the end it was only a few hours late, so I did a few things around the house, and once GtkEveMon reported rising Tranquility numbers I started downloading the expansion the manual way for installation on both computers.

741Mb later, and then a small client update for each machine and we are go.

Firstly the Ubuntu machine. Knowing that Incarna was going to hit sometime this year I updated the video card a while ago, and now I'm very thankful I did. Performance in the Captains Quarters (CQ) is okay. The colours on the avatar are a little strange, fluorescent eyebrows and hands, but otherwise fine. Some playing around with the graphics settings could change this, not a big deal either way for me.

Outside the station it seems a bit slower, again not a big issue as that machine is mostly used to keep an eye on market orders and other administrative tasks, once again I'll fiddle with some graphics settings and see what happens.

On the Windows machine which runs the main account the CQ, with the graphics settings all at max, was a little slow, and also the visuals, particularly of my avatar, was a little too sharp. Funnily enough I dropped the graphics settings to medium across the board and this improved the look of the avatar and sped up the CQ experience also.

Thankfully all the usual control buttons have been left in the game so the CQ could be totally ignored if you wish. Once the initial exploration has been completed I'll probably use it in that way, especially as the grey on grey on grey "colour" scheme is quite depressing.

I took some screen shots!

Graphics on high showing the infamous mirror which can be used to modify your appearance or just admire how sexy you are.

Graphics on medium showing the mirror once again, at the moment my preferred setting.

A view of the hanger area showing my currently active ship, a Myrmidon.

The couch. Enables viewing of the central propaganda screen (I cannot find the remote control to change the channel), corporation screen on the left and planetary interaction screen on the right. The central screen has some hot spots like news items but they open the In Game Browser (IGB) to display the information rather than it appearing on the main screen.

Then something strange happened. While I was logged in using the market girl avatar I changed the graphics settings and this happened.

The mystery of the invisible body or floating hair!

So the hair floated to the door that enables station access, only to be told the air was not good enough to enter quite yet.

Then the hair floated out along the walkway to the hanger bay.

To view the mighty power that is the Minmater Rifter in all its glory!

With the hair now podded up and controlling the Rifter, now slightly more agile due to the sixty five kilogram weight reduction that having no body provides, viewed a local miner and his weapons of ore harvest.

Lunch time.

I Stopped Caring

2011-06-21T15:30:00.001+10:00

Alliance Tournament 9 has been run and won by somebody.

To be honest for me it was in the totally wrong time zone, the recorded matches were made available on Youtube long after i stopped caring and the final turned out to be rigged.

Even the official web site was returning 404 errors only a few hours before the first round matches.

Meh.

Incarna 1.0 is being rolled out right now, as I type CCP have taken the servers offline for the patching process.

So i'm looking forward to the influx of The Sims and World of Warcraft players starting tomorrow.

The only worthwhile change that I can see which isn't fluff or bug fixes seems to be the jump bridge modification. From tomorrow only one jump bridge per system will be allowed, thus making multiple jump bridge travel longer and more dangerous as now many more system gates must be negotiated.

A welcome change as far as I'm concerned as the jump bridge network has been over powered for a long time, though hypocritically I've used it extensively.

Get Your Graphs Here!

2011-06-18T06:00:00.001+10:00

The more discerning Eve Online player, bereft of partnership, healthy food, an even tan, or even basic social graces loves a good graph!

Once again CCP have delivered!

Here is the link to the dev blog explaining the process.

Quote, "In the days after this change, the CPU-per-User metric across the whole cluster dropped by approximately 8%."

Considering the past couple of weeks have not been the best for CCP, for a variety of reasons, this is a good positive story.

Suspicious?

Insert Rage Here

2011-06-16T06:00:00.002+10:00

Last night was pretty quiet in game. I think the server being flaky all day caused a major disruption to the red patterns as we couldn't find any of them and none visited us.

Went to bed relatively early for a change.

In the morning I woke to this news:

Starting this summer you will be able to charge people for usage of your applications, websites and services for EVE Online.

This new system was introduced at the Dev Track and discussed at the Fanfest round tables. We got a lot of good feedback at Fanfest and would like to get more before finalizing the service.

Highlights

Simple process - Sign up on a webpage, get started straight away
Inexpensive - $99 per year, no other fees
Developer-friendly - Very few restrictions
Open-ended - You can charge subscription fees, receive donations, sell your app in an app-store and more
Non-commercial websites and apps will now require a (free) license

Link is here.

Last I checked the comments section was 18 pages of hate and climbing.

In theory, if I understand CCP's text correctly, for this very modest blog, if I asked for donations in real world money or ISK, I would then be a "commercial" site, I would then "have" to pay CCP $99 per year (I assume US currency, so about $94 AUS for me) for the right to continue existing.

In the early days of this blog I decided to not bother with options like Google ads as the visual pollution they produce compared to the four fifths of fuck all money they provide was not worth the trouble.

So as the site stands I believe the free license for a non-commercial web site would apply.

However I use the web services of Chribba, Battleclinic, Eve Kill, JB Route, DOTLAN, and others, as an essential part of existing in the Eve Online universe.

What will this do to the game if they were to disappear?

I assume CCP will block the access to the API which is required by those sites, if they don't cough up the money.

If this happens it will damage Eve Online, not strengthen it.

I can see a valid point for smart phone apps like Capsuleer for example. The reason Capsuleer was discontinued was due to the fact the developers could not source a legal agreement from CCP about payments for the product. It would appear this is a knee jerk reaction from that situation.

Though a quite arthritic and doped up one due to the massive passage of time since the demise of Capsuleer and now.

They have the potential to create some profit, though in reality I don't believe much profit due to the small Eve Online user base and the dilution caused by similar apps, both paid and free.

So what is going to happen now?

Well I expect some back pedaling from CCP, if you wish to wade through the comments section this has started to happen, and perhaps a complete retraction. Their timing couldn't have been worse as it came during the effects of the Lulz DDOS attack.

To finalise and quote a passage "We got a lot of good feedback at Fanfest"

Anybody that told you this was a good thing at Fanfest was high.

Hackers, Downtime and You.

2011-06-15T11:59:00.001+10:00

The server was down for about 5 hours after CCP realised what was going on, the link to the CCP post is here.

Downtime for me was about an hour as most occurred in the wee hours of the morning.

I was able to login for a short time, then a message appeared saying the server was going down in 5 minutes and it should be back online in about 20 minutes.

At the time of writing the servers have been down for longer than that, explanation is here.

While I'm not happy at the servers being down, why would I be? It is by far the better solution to make sure no other problems exist after the DDOS attack, especially regarding account security, credit cards, etc.

I assume at some stage in the future CCP will release some more information about the attack and also the unscheduled downtime's.

The message thread is here, probably to become very long.

Watch this space.

In The Deep End

2011-06-15T06:00:00.005+10:00

My usual morning routine is a login to Eve and check out last nights activities via corporation and alliance messages, market sales, trending prices for those items I'm interested in etc.

Except this morning I was not able to do this as a DDOS attack has rendered the Eve servers offline, apparently pulled by CCP themselves for security reasons. I'm now hoping the CC info is secure.

Last night, when the game was working, we went on a small roam a few jumps away from our home systems to try and keep the reds off balance. The fleet was slow in forming and less than ten finally joined so we camped a gate for a short while, missed out on a red Hound which turned up just as we were setting up, and then nothing else came through. The Fleet Commander (FC) then had a phone call and could somebody else FC the fleet. We didn't have any other "official" FC's in the fleet as it turned out.

So with no objections I took over the duties, the now absent FC had given us a destination and a mission, so we proceeded a few jumps and then camped another gate. I sent a scout in each direction to see what they could see. The first scout found no ships in his four jumps away from us so he returned, the second scout found a couple of reds and nuets in the system next door, and then the mother load of reds in the next system from that, about sixty of them.

So the situation at that time was our fleet numbered ten at best, we had a red system two jumps away of sixty plus, and we had a neutral in our system most probably reporting our location and composition to undesirable elements.

It was time to leave.

Happily the trip home was uneventful, the fleet mostly followed commands, and what was a standard roam turned into something slightly more interesting.

War Is Coming

2011-06-13T06:00:00.003+10:00

We live in interesting times these days in Delve. It would seem every man and his dog has moved, or is moving into our little slice of heaven, with typical results.

Luckily I was able to consult my Magic 8 Ball several days ago and I amalgamated my "stuff" into the main station, as previously it was strewn across at least three.

Today has been the first day we've seen major red fleets rolling through, by ourselves, not in our prime time, we can only hope to pick off small groups, stragglers, or bolster existing blue fleets.

It has been busy!

I managed to get a final shot on a Thorax and Omen last night in a small corporation roam, was pretty quiet which could be an issue as that's our prime time.

Delve is so confused at the moment it could take a while to settle down, we even shot up a Brick Squad iHub recently, they are a long way from home!

Evenews24 have a pretty good article on the history of Delve and what is happening now, and what may happen in the future, it is worth a read.

Rock Paper Shotgun

2011-06-10T06:00:00.002+10:00

From the Rock Paper Shotgun site comes an interview with them and CCP about DUST514.

Courtesy of CCP we have two articles about DUST514 from The Wall Street Journal and Games Beat.

Enjoy!

Web Page Updates

2011-06-09T09:56:00.000+10:00

Using the http://yosagiyojimbo.blogspot.com/?m=1 address will now show a correctly formatted site for mobile devices like iPhone, Android etc etc.

You'll also notice the addition of the DUST514 label due to the volume of news generated by the FPS.

I still need to replace some of the linked inactive blogs, so if you could suggest some good active ones that would be fantastic.

DUST514 Further Information

2011-06-08T06:00:00.002+10:00

According to a Sony link I'll post below CCP are saying a Summer 2012 release date, which could mean approx June-July 2012, about a year away.

The closed Beta should be available in approx December.

The links:

Sony Playstation DUST514 Release Info

The Comments Section

DUST514.com Press Release

Sony E3 DUST514 Presentation Video

The CCP Eve Online DUST514 Dev Blog

and last but not least, the first DUST514 Chronicle!