Fanfest #2 - Dust514 Soldiers Forever!

From Fanfest 2012 CCP have released a video that seems to introduce the soldiers for DUST514 as well as the implants they require to persist.

Enjoy!

Fanfest 2012 #1

Fanfest 2012 is go!

Well for the people in Iceland as CCP really dropped the ball with both the free and premium video feeds, they were either frozen or the audio was well out of sync for many hours.

The problem has now been fixed but it was incredibly frustrating.

I've been able to catch some of the live or recorded video, most of what I've seen so far was part of an Eve Online economics presentation and some info about DUST514.

The economics presentation was pretty dry, I guess it's hard to sex up what is essentially accounting, but when the camera breaks away from the presenter to the audience and I can count at least three people yawning that's not a good sign.

One set of figures that was repeated is that bounties introduce a much larger amount of ISK into Eve Online than Incursions and Mission Running combined.  PLEX was mentioned and also permanently banned accounts.  Over 10,000 units of PLEX currently reside in those accounts, CCP have said they will re-introduce those currently orphaned PLEX back into the Eve Online economy at some point.

Another more ominous piece of information relates to inflation, more ISK is coming into the game from various "faucets" than is leaving the game via various "sinks", so look forward to more "sinks" in the future.

I've also seen some of the DUST514 presentations with nothing terribly new being announced that I could see, mostly already announced features or obvious iterations.  Rather than this site re-inventing the wheel just head on over to http://www.dust514.org for a more in depth look at what information has been released so far.

So far Fanfest 2012 for me has been quite frustrating with the CCP video problems, my time zone in relation to Iceland, catching video repeats in a random way due to their broadcast schedule and my local commitments.

I suppose it will be like the other years and I'll just have to wait for several days to a week or two after Fanfest to really have access to all the information that was on offer.

Blue Balled & Fanfest & Douche FC's

On deployment at the moment at the behest of the alliance.

YAWN!

We were roaming around a couple of nights ago and the best intel we received from another roaming blue group was "we think a red went down through here a while ago".

Incredible.

Massive blue ball so far.

So currently in corp voice chat a few members are competing to see how high they can make their ship spinning numbers.

Yes that's actually happening.

Whereas the region we left behind has become a whirling dervish of activity as PL seem to be hot dropping pods with legions of carriers, I suspect they are also bored.

Fanfest 2012 is in a day or so, some live video will be available, either SD for free and HD for about a PLEX, though you'll receive a "free" hauler and t-shirt for that.

The only real thing I'm looking forward to at the Fanfest is the reception that DUST514 will receive, hopefully a good one.

Getting back to deployment and fleets.

I heard the other day that in a fleet, upon DBRB being announced as the FC, about thirty pilots left fleet but not before saying why.

Turns out they had "experienced" a DBRB fleet one too many times.

So I thought about the best way to describe to somebody who hasn't experienced the majesty of a DBRB fleet.

Being on voice comms with DBRB as FC is very similar to three hours of the worst Adam Sandler humour machine gunned at you, and you cannot leave.

Launch The Launcher!

The World of Tanks Eve Online launcher has arrived!

Since I took the screenshot it has rocketed to version 1.09.

I'm a little confused about the supposed function as it installed the major patch, as expected, but then when the game client had started it then wanted to install a minor patch, which after doing this re-started the game.

Wasn't the launcher designed to avoid this?

Not huge fans of the new launcher is the Eve Online Linux fraternity, of which I'm a member, as it has broken the WINE compatibility in a major way.  Some work arounds exist, which have fixed the issue for some people (not me [sad face]), with luck over the next few days the issues will be pinned down and dealt with.

I'm not quite sure why people are so excited about the new noob ships, I last flew one about four years ago, it's to keep the ADHD recruits happy I suppose.

What I don't like about Eve Online is how they change the ships, graphics, etc.

"Somebody broke into my hanger and stole my ship, but replaced it with a ship of identical function but it's shiny!", shouted the unhappy space captain.

What I would like to see, and I know why it will not happen, is when a new ship "skin" is introduced you still keep your old ship look, until you dock up in a station of the people who made that ship.  Then a message would appear that you were receiving a free upgrade to the "new skin model" and away you go.

This would go someway towards not breaking the immersion of Eve.

Furthermore when some star gates are replaced how about a gradual method of replacement, with space tugs, and security etc etc.  This would also advertise the fact that New Eden is a living breathing universe with change as a constant companion and not just two guys rebuilding an Inn for four years.

How Long Is It?

Without attention they fade away

Welcome to March 2012!

We are not too far away from the Fanfest in sunny Iceland, which also means it's voting time for the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) number 7!

This year we have seen the usual grandstanding from those you style themselves after Nero or Caligula, mass spamming of in game mail boxes (ignoring spam charges and blocks), scams with promises for PLEX in return for a vote and some other shenanigans that just go on and on and on.

Eve Online is becoming more like real life everyday it would seem.

I have to wonder what percentage of people want a spot on CSM7 to actually help the game, grandstand or "win" a few free trips to Iceland.

Obviously with the goonies voting as a block I'd be very surprised if Mittens, the Grand Poobah of that particular juggernaut didn't get up again, and quite possibly as the chairperson.

Unless some obstacle stops him from being chairperson again that I'm not aware of.

Chairperson is such a dumb description, it's like saying "I'm a male nurse".  Well of course you're a male nurse, you must likely have "meat and two veg" swinging down there and a five o'clock shadow so the "male" description is rather redundant.

I digress.

CSM7 could be a very important gathering as the coming year will bring us DUST514, the continuing re-focusing of "internet space ships" in Eve Online, I would say some more improvements to Walking In Stations, and, the complete elimination of Down Time (DT).

We live in hope.

Although I do say that with some seriousness as the other night, DT, which for us is slap bang in the middle of prime gaming time, was only six minutes long. You might think that six minutes isn't much and you'd be somewhat correct but the disruption it causes ripples out well past the "server up" time.

DT is officially 30 minutes so that is what everybody plans for, so a 6 minute DT is still essentially at least 30 minutes if you are planning an operation or roam as it takes that long for everybody to get ready.

So the other night DT was 6 minutes long, but it took 45 minutes to finish.