Adventures in Mission Running

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow year after year. For some of you who’ve been here since the very beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming style evolved through the years or months since you’ve started playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance – say manufacturing. Let’s hear your story!

When I started playing EVE back in 2006, I had but a simple dream: to be able to fly all the ships in EVE. While I worked on this path, I also learned that there is a difference between being to fly a ship, and being able to fly a ship. So I branched out, working on skills such as engineering, electronics and the like. As I described it back then when asked, “I want to be able to max out the attributes of whatever ship I was flying without fitting any modules.” This became my new path.

As the months and years went by, I continued to hone and learn new skills. Spaceship Command, Gunnery, Drones. All the while in the back of my mind there was the dream, “Fly every ship and fly it well.”

So where does that leave me now? Since I’ve moved out to wormhole space with my current corporation, making ISK hand over fist and getting my claws bloody with some PvP. I also have some skills I have left to work on so I can definitely see myself playing EVE for a few more years yet.

Obligatory pie chart of skills:

The third Blog Banter of 2010 comes to us from ChainTrap of the Into the unknown with gun and camera EVE Blog. He asks us: “Eve University turns six years old on March 15th; six years spent helping the new pilots of New Eden gain experience and understanding in a supportive environment. Eve is clearly a complicated game, with a ton to learn, so much that you never stop learning. So, the question is; What do you wish that someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out? Or what have you learned in the interim that you’d like to share with the wider Eve community?”

During the four years I’ve been playing EVE, I’ve come to recognize a few key ideas that make playing EVE a more rewarding experience.
Let me share them with you.

1. Always keep your clone up to date
2. Only fly what you can afford to lose
3. There are no stupid questions. Stupid answers? Definitely.
4. It’s only a game. When the Internet Spaceships starts to be too serious a business, it’s time to go outside.
5. If you’re just starting out, DO THE TUTORIALS!
6. Learning skills are good!

I’d go on and on, but I’m working on my brevity.

Fly safe.

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.

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!

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!!!