Adventures in Mission Running

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

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m attending Fragapalooza 2009 this weekend. One of the biggest LAN parties in Canada, according to their website. Over 400 men, women, and children playing a variety of computer games from Team Fortress 2 to Starcraft, Left 4 Dead to World of Warcraft. And yours truly, playing EVE Online.

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.

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.

Welcome to the tenth 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 leans a little, OK a lot, on the academic side. It comes to us from xiphos83 of A Misguided Adventurer, who asks the following: ” Victor Davis Hanson argues that western culture, comprising of ideals such as freedom, debate, capitalism, and consensual government, are what make western society so successful at waging war. These ideologies create a warrior who’s direct participation in government, ability to think freely, and desire to remain free, fights harder and is willing to suffer more than his conscripted foe. Though a military must remain a structured oligarchy to fight a war effectively, why in a world where military conflict is as familiar as breathing are there so few alliances that embrace these ideologies when governing their members?”

I gave this topic a fair bit of thought ever since CrazyKinux emailed the topic information to me last week. Why would alliances in a game where military conflict is common place not embrace these ideologies?
I gave this topic a bit more thought as to why alliances in a game choose not to embrace these ideologies.
Then it dawned on me…
It’s a game.
No one’s getting bombed out of their homes during an alliance war. No one’s killing anyone over ideological differences of opinion. Bits of data are being manipulated, that’s it. After a few hours of pew pew, we all log off, back into our nice, hopefully not war torn, homes.
And that’s why I think these ideologies haven’t percolated into the psyche of Alliances. Real war has a way of bringing out certain properties of a person that pixels on a screen shouldn’t. That’s my off the cuff feeling, anyways.

Here’s a link that CrazyKinux set up to let you see what others have written about this subject. CLICK ME!!!

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.

One of the things I’ve always loved about EVE Online is how beautiful it is. Especially after Trinity and subsequent updates, I have spent hours just sitting in my ship, marvelling at just how gorgeous this game can be.

Especially the ships. The way the starlight gleams off metal and the fire and fury of weapons. Yeah. Damned beautiful game.

Which leads me to today’s subject.

I present to you, High Beams!, an Amarr Navy Slicer.

High Beams! in space

High Beams! docked

Yes, it looks like an Executioner-class frigate that got bent the wrong way, but it has headlights!

And this is why you don’t surf the contracts before going to bed, kids

Not much to tell lately, ran missions, blew up stuff, ran some more missions. Traded in some loyalty points and cruise missiles for some faction cruise missiles. Hopefully they sell quickly.

Finished learning Thermodynamics and nanite skills. Looking forward to trying them out with Clear Skies soon. Went back to working on Leadership skills for the next time I can get over and help my corpmates shoot at people I can help boost things like armour and shield hitpoints and targetting range.

Here are some screenshots. Enjoy!

Clear Skies broadside

Checking a wreck

Knock Knock

Hauling stuff

Worlds Collide

Santola system, The Citadel region

Warped to the mission site. Armour repair and tank mods active. While not quite as robust as the tank of a Dominix-class battleship, an Ishtar can be a tough nut to crack. Hopefully I don’t find a nutcracker on this mission.

Dropped out of warp. The overview shows several targets between me and the gate into the next area. Four turrets and several reprogrammed mining drones (that bear a striking resemblance to rogue drones). Noticing that they’re keeping their distance from my ship, I use one of my favorite ways of dealing of targets that like to keep their distance:  Tech two Sentry drones

curator sentry drone

Capable of popping destroyer and frigate sized targets at range in one salvo, five of them can make short work of even battleship rats in short order. Comparing them to artillery or railguns wouldn’t be too far of a stretch.

And like artillery, you need to have some way of dealing with those targets that get too close and orbit too fast for the sentry drones. Enter the tech two medium and heavy drones.

infiltrator medium drone

praetor heavy drone

After watching them dealing with the wave of reinforcements, I fly to the acceleration gate and jump into the next zone…

Acceleration gate with behind it

And meet my nutcracker. Fortunately I was able to escape before all the magic smoke escaped.

:) burns!

Unfortunately, I left my flight of praetors behind. Luckily they were all there when I came back. until I got one blown up by having it pull aggro. :S

But in the end, the mission was completed and I got paid. Which is good, because it was getting late and I was getting tired. =D

Managed to get some time logged in and play some EVE this last week.

The biggest thing I accomplished was acquiring a second mission running ship to keep Happy Face company.

I present my new Ishtar-class heavy assault ship,

:) in Space

:)