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 Get podded with an out-of-date clone and you’ll lose skillpoints.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.

You can read it here.

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.

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!

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

The lights of colony site twinkle in a mountain valley of this unnamed world. Stretching up into the night sky the safety lights of the space elevator mark off the kilometres up to the orbital terminus high above. Amongst the twinkling stars, other ephemeral flashes can be seen. One particular star grows brighter and draws closer until the bomb crashes into the colony and annihilates the valley in a flash of a million suns.

24 hours earlier

The two Gallente woman, a blonde and a redhead, sitting at one of the several coffee houses on the station veranda could be assumed to be business people by their attire. As they sip their coffee and enjoy the starlight streaming though the huge windows, they chat.

“…why they chose that system. A backwater dead-end system that noone ever visited. Even their carebears,” the blonde said.
“How did they find it then?”
“One of their pilots noticed a spike in traffic in that system on the map and went in, looking for neutral targets.”
“So some wildcats set up a mining colony in the middle of nowhere. They worried that one of their enemies will buy it and set up a staging area?” the redheaded woman asked.
The blonde shrugs. “I didn’t ask, and they didn’t say.”
“One of your usual land’n'grab ops with your dirtpounders then?” the other asks, sipping her coffee.
“Actually, they have something else in mind. Which is why I asked you to join me.”
“I’m intrigued. Go on…”

Twenty hours later

“Stiletto One, Hammer Actual. Do you read?” the comlink chirps into the redhead’s ear. She stops walking along the creek and looks up at the space elevator cable reaching into the heavens. Invisible in the blue day lit sky, a battlefleet is hammering at the orbital terminus, draining its shields and distracting the automated defense systems from the apparently quiet world below.
“Hammer Actual this is Stiletto One. Go ahead.”
“How is your nature walk going? Almost at the ground terminus yet?” the blonde, Hammer Actual, asks.
“Going as well as expected. I’m still a couple of klicks away. Fortunately, this rough terrain is hiding me from the automated sentries. Unfortunately, it’s slowing me down a lot.” Stiletto One resumes her trek up the creek valley towards the colony site.
“We landed you as close as we could. Even with our distraction up here, we didn’t want to risk tipping any eyes on the ground by landing you too close. What kind of ETA are we looking at?”
“According to your satellite scan, this valley runs almost all the way to the site. I should be inside and set up in about two hours or so. Assuming no major glitches with the nexus AI, I’ll have it hacked and subverted a couple hours later and your employers will be the brand new owners of this backwater colony.”
“Roger. Report back when you’re in position. Hammer Actual out.”
“Roger. Stiletto One out.”

Four hours later

“Stiletto One, Hammer Actual! Are you there!?” the comlink chirps. The redhead looks up from the terminal screen, frowning with annoyance.
“Hammer Actual, this is Stiletto One. I told you when you called me half an hour ago that this will take a couple of hours. That wildcat corporation left this colony to finish setting up automatically and some of the high level AI subroutines are-”
“Stiletto One. Abort. We’ve sent a drop ship down to get you. Grab your gear and be ready to leave in five minutes!”
“What’s going on? I’ll have this colony ready to hand over in an hour or two.”
“The alliance that hired us changed their minds. They decided that a hydrocarbon mining colony wasn’t worth the maintenance hassles and they’re sending one of their capsuleer pilots to this planet to nuke the ground terminus from orbit.”
“Godsdammit! Roger, Hammer Actual. Pulling the plug.” Stiletto breaks off comms and quickly disconnects herself from the computer systems of the colony. She can hear the roar of the dropship landing through the walls as she gathers the rest of her gear. Suddenly the the lights go red and the primary display flickers to life.

MAR SARA COLONY
SPACE ELEVATOR ONE

INCOMING NUCLEAR WARHEAD DETECTED
4 MINUTES TO GET TO SAFE DISTANCE

“Oh snap,” Stiletto mutters as she runs out to the drop ship waiting outside.

Twenty minutes later

Hammer and Stiletto are standing on the bridge of a Hyperion-class battleship. On the viewscreen, the mushroom cloud can still be seen hanging in the air above the former colony site. In space above, the disconnected, dead, orbital terminus drifts in orbit. It will come crashing down to the planet in a few months, the hundreds of kilometres of tether hanging from it dragging it down into the atmosphere.

Stiletto looks over at Hammer. “We’re still going to get paid, right?”

Terra Firma

[Author's note: It's a good thing CCP announced that Dust 514 game. I was having a pickle of a time figuring out how to integrate some of the ground-based combat elements with EVE.]

Colonizing a world in several easy steps.

1. Head out to 0.0 space. All the colonizable worlds in lowsec and highsec have been claimed already. Sovereignty in its current form has no bearing on whether a world can be claimed.
2. Find an unclaimed world. It won’t have any space elevators installed around it.
3. Scan the potential colony world. This requires the Planetary Survey skill. (2x skill. Requires Survey 4. Speeds up scan speed of planets by 5% per skill level) When a planet is scanned, its quality is determined. The quality of a planet can range from 0 to 5. 0 being the lowest quality and 5 being the best. With better quality comes more resources that can be harvested, etc.
4. Once the world is scanned and deemed desirable, the colonization process is started by placing the first space elevator onto the planet. The orbital terminus is placed within a certain distance of the planet (likely within 5km in the game) and anchored much like an anchorable object is now.
5. Once the orbital terminus has been anchored up in orbit, the actual colonization process is started. The orbital terminus goes into a reinforced mode as the tether extends down to the surface.
6. Once colony is established 24 hours later, active defenses come online both in orbit to prevent landings and/or orbital bombardment and on the ground to repel ground-based assaults. Shield HP reduced to reflect vulnerability of the colony at the bottom of a gravity well.
7. Congratulations! You’ve colonized a world.

Now that you have a world, what can you do with it?

• Install additional space elevators. The maximum number of elevators a colony can support is determined by the quality of the planet. A Q0 or Q1 world can support one elevator. Q2 can support two, Q3 three, up to Q5 with five elevators. Additional elevators increase the defensive and productive capabilities of the colony.
• Terraform the colony. This improves the quality of the world, which is generally viewed as a good thing. However this is not a process that can be entered lightly. A colony has to have at least one elevator installed. Additional elevators will speed up the process. A Q5 planet cannot be improved. A terraforming module needs to be installed in the elevator by a pilot with the Planetary Engineering skill. (5x skill. Needs Science 5, Planetary Survey 4. Decreases terraforming time by 5% per skill level) A terraform module requires a fuel like strontium and the default cycle time is 14 days. During the terraforming, the productive processes of the colony shut down. The defense systems remain online during the process.

Conquest and Combat

EVE wouldn’t be EVE without combat. Colonies will have two battlefronts; the ground and orbital termini.

The orbital terminus can be taken by besieging it with ships. Once the shields are down, dropships can ferry troops over for some exciting boarding action with that Dust game (See why I’m glad they announced it? ). Or blown out of the sky. The terminus has shields and defensive turrets than can be operated with a pilot with starbase defense management to repel attackers.

The ground terminus has automated turrets and can be supplemented with live personnel if desired for defense. A colony can be destroyed usually by orbital bombardment. It can be taken over by ground assault or by covert action.

And those are my ideas regarding implementing planetary control. Hopefully any similarities bewteen other folks’ ideas are a result of a similar science fiction experience.

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

During the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, we were given the opportunity to see the movie Second Skin, a documentary that focused for the most part on a few people who play World of Warcraft or Everquest 2 and how their ingame lives collided with their out-of-game ones . Let me start by saying that I enjoyed watching this movie.  It flowed well and was entertaining. However I’m pretty sure that the enjoyment that the audience here derived probably wasn’t the kind that the film makers had in mind.

Take a room full of several hundred people who enjoy playing video games. Of those several hundred people , I’m willing to say that about a quarter (at least), have logged into WoW, EQ, EQ2, DAoC, etc. etc. Show them a movie that has as its premise that all MMO players are fat, socially maladjusted people that are either hopelessly addicted to their games, or so emotionally dependant that they’re willing to move thousands of kilometres to meet up with their “soul mate” that they met in their online adventures.

The reaction? Laughter for the most part. The bar graph that determined that we only have an hour in a day to do everything but play and sleep? A few chuckles and nods of bemused agreement. The time-lapse sections where those guys are playing almost non-stop to get their WoW toons to 70, sleeping on the couch? This is Fragapalooza! That is how we roll this weekend. However, that is not how we roll every day (for the most part).

We were basically laughing at a movie that was working on reinforcing all the negative imagery that gets invoked when Gamers come to mind. As fellow blogger CrazyKinux eloquently described in his post about the movie:

What the folks behind Second Skin did though is focused on the “weird” behaviors of some MMO players. I’m not saying that everyone in the film is a weirdo, but what I am saying is that that’s where the filmmakers decided to focus on. As I was watching the film, I couldn’t help but tell myself that these were not the kind of folks I played with. These were not the types of people I had come to know over the last 5 years of playing EVE Online. And I don’t think it’s a “Well-this-is-how-WoW-players-are” kind of thing. I’m totally aware that a lot of MMO players have addictive-like behaviors when it comes to playing these games.

That’s my 0.02ISK about this movie.

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.