Charcoal Images of Night

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.