Adventures in Mission Running

This is for CrazyKinux’s Special Edition of the Blog Banter

When you’ve been roaming New Eden as long as I have, it almost feels like home. That’s how familiar it has become over the last 5 years. Not that I have done everything or touched every aspect of this most amazing of virtual world, far from it, but it just feels as though it’s always been there. And always will be.

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

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

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

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

1. It’s not World of Warcraft. Wanted to get this elephant in the room out of the way first. Bind on Pickup and 40-man raids are pretty much why I stopped playing WoW. You won’t find the first in EVE and you don’t have to join big fleets in EVE if that’s not your thing.
2. It’s the Fisherman’s Friend of MMOs. From the WoW-Europe Forum: “EVE is like the “Fisherman’s Friend” of MMOs.If it’s too hard, you are too weak.” EVE can be a harsh mistress. When a ship is lost, it is gone forever. Get podded with an out-of-date clone and you’ll lose skillpoints. A harsh game that I love.
3. One big sandbox (with landmines). One server. 300,000+ subscribers. Free to do whatever they want (as long as the ingame mechanics are adhered to). Miner. Mission-runner. Pirate. Explorer. Commander of fleets. Spy. You can do all those things if you want. All you need are the desire and the time to learn the skills.  What’s there not to love?
4. Blogpacks and tweetfleet and friends oh my! The player community of EVE is legendary. It probably has something to do with everyone being on the same server. The fact that I have friends and current corp mates from back in the old RUN days is also another thing I love about EVE.
5. It’s a beautiful game. Let me share some screenshots…

Clear Skies broadside

Wormhole operations usually involve a light show

Exploring the unknown

That’s why I love EVE, in a nutshell. As one of my friends so eloquently put it, “you love eve because internet spaceships is serious business, and tehre is so much wicked shit in eve than u can never get bored, get bored with mining then start building get bored with building start missionrunning, et cetera, now geif me my prize“

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from the EVE Blog Father, CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves “What Now?” What will I attempt next? What haven’t I done so far in EVE? Was it out fear, funds, or knowledge? Have I always wanted to start my own corporation, but have never dared doing so? Is there a fledging mercenary waiting to come out of its shell? Or maybe an Industrialist? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

What is it going to be for me?

A good question. For most of the past four years I’ve been playing EVE, I’ve been in highsec space, running missions for various NPC corporations and factions. I’ve dabbled with PvP corps, but I usually find myself back in highsec running missions again.

Until last November.

The corp I was in was imploding. So I decided to join some of my former corpmates and friends from the old days in the newb corp in their wormhole corporation. Living in wormhole-space, killing sleepers, making ISK hand over fist they promised. Definitely a nice change of pace from running missions. The money is good and defnitely a sense of being “out there” when you’re in a wormhole system. I’ve learned that I really like flying Tech 3 cruisers too.

I like it out here. I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon.

Exploring the unknown

Loki Tech 3 Cruisers

Legion Tech 3 Cruiser

The view from the main POS

Skillwise, my plan is to work on my missile and leadership skills, learn to fly Tengu and Proteus-class ships, and maybe even finish Destroyers 5.

I wrote up a guest column over at CrazyKinux’s website about setting up a mission running Dominix.

You can read it here.

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

The first banter of this 2nd year of EVE Blog Banters comes to us fromZargyl from A Sebiestor Scholar, who asked the following: On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled “Design your own EVE mission”. My question now would be what kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arks? What would be the story told by it? Feel free to expand upon his questions and put together your very own mission!

Not satisfied with just hammering out just one mission, I’ll be hammering three!

Actually, it’s three variations of the same mission arc. An arc for level two, level three and level four. What binds them together? The cool, nifty, and exotic spaceship you’ll get at the end! I’m proposing a frigate or destroyer sized hull for level two, battlecruiser for level three, and battleship for level four. The ships themselves would variations of a marauder, adjusted for size.

How do I get a fancy spaceship like that from a mission arc? To boil things down for simplicity, you buy, loot, or salvage various bits and pieces of the ship during each mission step and at the end, you trade it into the agent for a shiny, sexy spaceship.  There would be a variety of mission types, from standard kill everything red in the room to courier missions, to archaeology/hacking sites, and even mining (ugh).

Just a rough idea.

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

This month’s banter comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: First there was the MMO on the PC, and now with the recent announcement of DUST 514, EVE will soon be moving onto consoles. But what about mobile? Allow your imagination to run wild for a second and describe how you would see EVE being ported to mobile devices, whether the iPhone/iPod touch, Blackberrys or Android-based devices. Dream the impossible for us!

EVE on my iPhone? Interesting idea. What would I do? Well, I doubt I’d be running too many level 4 missions. I don’t trust my 3G connection that much. I would be willing to do things like check my mail, my sell orders and such. Reading the latest dev blog about COSMOS suggests all sorts of possibilities. Then there’s the nifty apps like Capsuleer that are already out there.

And that’s my 0.02ISK!

Hello.

No, I haven’t forgotten my password to the site. Just haven’t had too much exciting go on to write about. The new level 4 epic arc was exciting. looking forward to running it again in a few months.

Perhaps when winter keeps me inside more I’ll have more to write about.

Fly safe

Quickly retyping this since I seemed to have deleted it…

Others have done this recently, and I like to share.

Pie chart

I used EVEHQ instead of EVEMon because: A) Nicer looking, easier to read chart, and B) I’ve already linked my ineve character sheet in a different post on this site.

The others?

• Casiella
• Godlesswanderer
• EVE’s Weekend Warrior
• Manasi
• Biomassed/Hitch

Did I miss anyone? Please post your pie in the comments

A short post tonight…

Forgot that active armour tanks needs activated armour mods to work properly. I’ll miss that Ishtar… Hopefully v2, a Dominix-class battleship lasts a little longer.

Here’s a picture of v2 above Sankkasen I

:) v2 above Sankkasen I

In other news, I’ll be going to Fragapalooza 2009 this weekend. If you find yourself in the Fort Saskatchewan area, pop in, and look for the guy wearing a fedora (I’m pretty sure I’ll be the only one). I’ll also be one of the few guys playing EVE there too.

Edmonton, Alberta [OOC]

While on my way to the day job, I’m catching up on reading some EVE blogs when I come across EVE Guru’s tale of seeing animals. Intrigued, I look at the image. It seems to look a lot like the station my EVE toon is based out of in Caldari space. I’ll have to check it out next time I log in and remember to do that

The next day…

Sankkasen system The Citadel region [IC]

I running a storyline courier mission when I remember that I’m supposed to be seeing small furry animal shadows on stations. Directing the camera drone at the station, I rotate it around the station and then I see it…

Bunny shadow

The bunny.

In other news, I’ve almost dragged up my Amarr standings enough so that I can go back to Heimatar space.

Sankkasen system The Citadel region

Received the Angel Extravaganza mission again. Decided to try it with this time around. I used a similar tank to the one I used with Happy Face the first time around and it worked great. The damage to the armour was soaked up and repaired before I even had time to notice. A tough nut indeed. As an aside, I switched back to my clone with +5 implants and a couple of 5% Noble implants a while back. They help the armour tanking a wee bit.

Here are some dramatic and exciting screenshots from my latest adventure

Target rich environment

Getting shot at

Bouncer

berserker making friend

I learned this evening that I really don’t need energy turret skills to fly a Curse-class recon ship effectively. My wallet may not like this enlightenement.