First off, I just want to let Casiella know that the reason I am making the Tyrannisaurus joke is because I dig dinosaurs. In my opinion, dinosaurs rock. I am an amateur paleontologist, and I can feel the urge to study them in my bones. Somebody stop me before these puns tear the world asunder.

Well, I suppose it’s time to get on topic.

Earlier today, I hopped on about an hour before work to mess around on Sisi to check out the new-but-still-in-development Tyrannis features. I have to say, I am really digging them. They are very cool. For some reason, I am really into the strictly icon based view of planetary interaction (PI). It seems fitting for the universe of EVE. A beautiful, dynamic world contrasted by the utilitarian mapping of infrastructure. Yes… fitting.

Some features are currently not full-fledged, of course. The satellite scanning can be turned on to active, but it makes no difference, as it is seemingly not being utilized at the moment. Every planet I visited had the same distribution of the same three materials; argon gas, helium isotopes, and something-else-but-I’m-drawing-a-blank. Not that this is a problem or anything. CCP is only halfway done with Tyrannis, so I would expect many things to not be available at the moment. All this does is get me excited for what they will offer when they become an option.

As for the available features, I like them. I’ve already stated how much I like the icon based design for the infrastructure. It’s sleek, simple, and professional. The new drop down menus are, oddly enough, refreshing. It was nice to see new options for new things. Felt good, like scrubbing a dirty mirror, or wiping your smudgy monitor because your friends don’t understand the concept of ‘point but don’t touch, please’. I also enjoyed the thermal mapping of materials on the planets. When it comes down to it, I am very impressed by the UI for Tyrannis. My only qualm was not fully understanding the requirements for how to gather materials (for example, I didn’t understand that it was necessary to have a factory). I’m sure that CCP will find a way to smooth this over, or may decide to just leave it up to the player base to explain the process of PI to itself, which, as we’ve seen, is probably what will happen.

I would also like to say that this is the first time I had ever been on Sisi. I sort of stumbled through getting it installed correctly on my computer, and feel that somebody should probably work on the wiki page on how to do it.

That person isn’t me, so don’t say ‘Well hey, August, you should do it’ because I am a) not computer literate enough to very well explain to somebody how to do it and b) don’t fully understand how I only did a few of the steps then tweaked what-nots on my computer until it worked enough to get going.

In any case, not a lot to say about being on Sisi. It’s like an alternate futureverse of Tranquility. So… you know. That’s about it for that.

In other news, my girlfriend is digging playing EVE. I came home from work to find her making me a sandwich reading up on the Amarrian heirs and stuff. She does stuff like that. She had gotten on today to tweak her skill queue and actually ended up joining EVE University (HEADS UP ARUKEMOS). I was proud of her for getting that done all by herself without asking me any questions.

My plans for the rest of the night are to do maybe another mission or two, go to bed, then pull a seven hour shift at work tomorrow. Not too bad.

Remember… Love forever; love is free.

“Meddlesome” is among one of the more G-rated things I’ve been called in EvE. “Trouble-maker”, “instigator” “pirate” (really?), these are all somewhat lighter fare than the more cringe-worthy “motherf*cking piece of sh*t” “asshole” (inclusive of all derivatives and conjugations), “f*ck-stick”, “homosexually-inclined phallus consier” [edit]… it just goes on like this actually. But today it was “meddlesome”, and I kind of took a shine to it.

There’s a saying about “pitting your enemies against each other” that would sound a lot more eloquent if I could remember it correctly. The idea is, get the two guys who are after you to fight each other instead and you’ve just killed two birds with one stone (egads, making one idiom into another!).

Today I was in Vittenyn with Scopique, and after burning a Megathron (and the two subsequent “just coming back to get my loot” bestowers), we tried playing some can games with some members of the Cut Throats and Wise Guys corp. Realizing they weren’t going to play, Scop went afk for a bit, and I went to dock up and get some RL work done as well.

Docking at the station however, I realized that the reason the Wise Guys weren’t playing was that they were busy camping the station like a girl-scout troop. Hooray for carebear station games! I convoed one of the guys we’d been messing around with before and discovered they were currently at war and had the “bad guys” “camped in goodLOL”. Right. Suddenly I realized how it is I knew these guys; their corp used to be in the now defunct (and former TEARS arch-nemesis) deadspace society. :). Gears began turning.

I docked up and struck up another convo with one of  the Wise Guys’ war targets. Huzzah! I knew these guys too! E-honor waving, anti-pirates who I’d can flipped on numerous occasions before. NOW this was becoming a party!

Really for no reason other than the perpetration of chaos and hilarity, I decided to tell the war targets I’d be happy to give outside station intel to help them break up the Wise Guys’ station camp (and I would, messing with ex-DEADS? Sure!). What I didn’t mention is that I was also giving the Wise Guys intel on what to expect these guys to undock in.

I set both sides to different colors and undocked to watch the fireworks go off around me:

Silly carebears and their silly station games. I went around cackling like a kid in a candy store, cherry-picking shiney goodies out of every wreck, docking up, emptying cargo, undocking again, rinse and repeat. 7 minutes and 75mil isk in goodies later, the smoke cleared, and both sides thanked me profusely for my help. Wait, what? Yes, thanked me. I was added to multiple address books for “future help”, and both sides declared a resounding victory despite I think just about everyone except the Nighthawk dying horribly.

Go figure.

Speaking of station games: apparently the CSM is kicking ass in their elected roles and has put forth a measure to CCP which would pretty much put an end to ridiculous station warfare. In addition to *finally* being able to look out a station window (so to speak) and see who’s camping you in what, warp-scrammed ships would not be able to simply disengage and dock up when the going gets rough. Win. The full CSM summit notes can be found ->here<- (PDF form) and I highly recommend reading the full thing.

o7,

-Aiden

“The music you play is the soundtrack of your life”

-Dick Clark

I’ve been playing Eve for more than a year now, and especially since starting this blog, I’ve become more and more involved in the out-of-game “community” aspects of it.

That community of players is something that I’ve really come to love about this game, and I’ve been trying to think of ways to add to it. I do have this blog, which I intend to keep going full steam with, but I wanted to bring something more to the table. I really enjoy writing, including creative writing, but because I can’t really get into the role-play elements of eve, I have problems coming up with decent fan-fiction I can get behind.

So then I thought, what about music? I’m a composer and arranger in my RL work, doing mostly commercial work, arrangements for bands, and indie film scoring, and as such part of what immediately drew me into this game was Jón Hallur Haraldsson’s (CCP RealX) game-score. Its the sounds we listen to almost every day in New Eden, and it defines the world we fly around in. Jón’s compositions give Eve life; they flesh out the cold harshness of space, and give it its recognizable cyber-punk, post-electronica, space-opera mood.

The scoring is perfect, but sometimes, we just want more. So with that in mind, I’ve put together a couple of tracks in the style of Eve. I’d like to think of them as addendums to, rather than an imitations of the in-game music; further listening for your aural pleasure in the same style as the rest of the music in Eve.

The tracks can be found ->here<- , on a myspace page I set up as Aiden (don’t get me started on myspace…I wanted to start killing strangers after dealing with that setup process). So, give a listen, and I hope you enjoy.

On a totally different note, as of today, I’ve been in Suddenly Ninjas for exactly one year. So, at the risk of getting all emo on you all, I raise my glass to the finest group of miscreants and fun-loving criminals in Eve. Cheers guys.

o7,

-Aiden

If you haven’t already seen it up on the Dev Blog, I wanted to take a second to step back from internet spaceships and talk real life for a second. As you know, two weeks ago an off-the-charts earthquake shattered Haiti, leaving 100,000 dead and almost another 100,000 missing or presumed dead. World-wide aid and relief is coming in to help, but everything can be of assistance now, especially as the disaster enters its second phase with shortages of food and clean water, shelters, and sanitation.

CCP has decided to step forward with donations from both them and the Eve Online player-base. Starting on January 19th until February 15th, CCP will be taking donations towards the relief effort in Haiti in for form of PLEXs, which they will then turn into IRL monetary donations. If you think a PLEX is a bit too much for you to afford in-game right now, there are also plenty of other ways to help at RedCross.org .

I’d also like to second what both CCP and Casiella over at Ecliptic Rift have written about those who might see this as an opportunity to scam for personal gains. To do so would be despicable beyond comprehension, and this is coming from someone who spends their time in-game stealing, looting, suicide-ganking, and mocking others. I’d urge a perma-ban on anyone found attempting to scam based on this endeavor by CCP.

Anyways, be well, and thanks for reading.

o7,

-Aiden

In a game thats practically built on a foundation that allows and downright encourages players to scam, cheat, lie-to, and extort others (and we love you for it CCP), where do you draw the line? Most of us are aware of the big no-no’s that will bring down the big-bad-Ban Hammer; real-life threats, racial epitaphs, and pretty much anything involving IRL money are the obvious big ones. But sometimes you come across an idea or a scam that just not that cut and dry. This scenario was brought up in SN corp chat tonight, and seeing as its a VERY gray area, I wanted to field it out there to see how people felt about it.

Note: the scenario described below is PURELY a hypothetical scenario

Lets say you’re talking to someone in eve, and they casually mention that they sometimes share their account with a friend. Not like, “sometimes my friend takes over at the keyboard while I take a piss” but as in “we share a username and password”. Account-sharing for those unaware, is a BIG no-no with CCP, and is grounds for a perma-ban.

But back to our scenario. Person A is told by person B that he (person B) and his buddy, person C, share an eve account. “Egads!” thinks person A, thinking first of his duty as a loyal capsuleer. As he’s proof-reading over his immaculate and scathingly righteous  CCP petition however, something else comes to mind.  The intrepid and sneaky side of him comes to life, and thinks there may be a way to profit from this knowledge. An idea begins to form.

Person A goes back to person B, now with an evil grin on his face. He informs person B of his slip-up, as well as what sort of consequences he’s looking at for it. But then, person A lets person B know that “maybe” this could be their little secret…for a price.

And so here’s our dilemma: Has this crossed a line? By blackmailing B and C, is person A now an accomplice to B and C’s offense? What if person A takes the bribe money and then still reports B and C to CCP? Would that change anything about how you view the scenario?

I’m honestly looking for responses here, so please comment away. And again, this is a fictitious hypothetical scenario.

o7,

-Aiden

p.s. Its been whispered to me that my blog is at times hard to read. Looks good to me, but then again I’m biased. Would appreciate feedback in that department as well.

Earlier today, Kirith Kodachi wrote at the Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah:

With the Dungeons and Dragons Online going to a Free-To-Play model with microtransactions and premium memberships as the method of making money, and with a lot of commentators saying that the traditional 15 dollar a month subscription is going to be obsolete in the future, I wonder how Eve could become a microtransaction based game.

I can see existing account services like character transfers and avatar changes remaining but they would be low money makers I suspect.

Perhaps some customization options like more character avatar upgrades or perhaps custom ship skins. Could the player community agree to some ships being available in a microtransation store?

Maybe allowing players to buy Loyalty Points in bulk. They can use the LPs to buy from the Loyalty Point Stores items not available to be built from blueprints and then turn around and sell them on the market for ISK to get whatever they want.

Do we allow certain ship classes to be available only through LP stores?

Perhaps once Incarna arrives (that is the new code name for Walking In Stations / Ambulation) there will be hordes more opportunities for a microtransaction store (although while typing this post I really became enamoured with selling Loyalty Points… seems like a good wedge point for the concept in the player base).

Comments? Discussion?

I, personally, think that the move to the Microtransaction model would be a very bad thing for EVE Online.  There are several reasons behind this, not the least being the effects on the economy, the player base, and continued support of the game from CCP.

First of all, the whole business model behind the Microtransaction MMO market is accessability and impulse buying.  Basically you make the game free so that tons of people sign up, and hopefully before they get bored and move on X% will spend $Y on +1 broadswords so that you can pay the bills for the server farm, and then A% will stay on for the long run and buy $B worth of Armor of Doom so that you can pay for the Porsche.  If you’re really lucky, you can get the extra options too!      O.o

The effects this could have on EVE are many, but the most obvious one is the fact that some part of the game will be exclusive content.  The most logical thing would be to make this Faction ships and mods,which would probably happen, but remember the “Accessible” portion of our formula.  The Faction ships equate to the Armor Of Doom, so what is a +1 Broadsword?  That’s right:  maybe it’s the Merlin frigate, or 200mm autocannons.  It’s going to be T1 ships and equipment because if a player has to play for two months or more before they have the skills to operate the exclusive content, you’re throwing out money because most of your X% buyers have already left the game.  The other side of the accessability coin, of course, is the fact that EVE is NOT accessable to casual gamers.  To enable the game for Microtransaction market, it will have to be dumbed down.

Now what about all those extra noobs running around.  It’s okay, they’re going to learn the game and be productive, knowledgable members of the community.  Well, maybe 10%?  The rest will leave, and be replaced by another wave of noobs.  I’m a noob, so don’t get me wrong, but will space be overcrowded with 13 year old girls doing the teddy bear courier missions over and over?  Will their portraits look like this?

Okay, moving on to a more concrete issue, what about the economy?  The higher number of new players will drive up costs for basic equipment?  They will sell all of their ore and loot without checking the prices and drive all of the averages through the basement?  The limitation of some portions of the game to exclusive content will also drive a wedge into the middle of the market that I, admittedly, do not have the economics education to even be able to fathom.

Then we have the issue of CCP’s bank account.  We can all sit back right now and say “hey, great, I can play for free!”  But what about the next expansion?  What about fixing Jita lag?  What about updating graphics and sounds?  Who pays for this?  Right now, we do.  Look at your monthly subscription like you’re paying taxes and CCP is the government.  Sure, they’re making a buck, but they have to feed their families, too.  I’m sure that a LOT of the money that they get from us goes BACK into the game to make it better.  And updates stopping is just a short-term effect.  The long term effect of this would be the end of the world  (no, really, it would be).

So here’s my foresight on the world of EVE as a microtransactioned F2P game:  Space flooded with noobs who have no idea what their doing, half of them being 13 year old girls because the game has been made to look like this one over here to attract that lucradive market that have “daddy please can I have it” eyes.  The economy of New Eden crumbles into a shambles of what it once was and we find ourselves dishing out 5 dollars/pounds/euros/marks/yen to buy a Merlin from some gypsy NPC station trader.  CCP pays the bills, sure, but they can’t release the “Walking to the Fridge for Zydrine Wine” expansion, fix Jita lag (local is at 4000 by now, BTW), or update the graphics.  All of this pisses off long-time players, who leave.  Server consolidation then sets in as the population continues to dip and finally New Eden gets sucked into the black hole of forgotten digital code.

I, for one, don’t mind paying a little scratch for some entertainment.  I figured out a bit ago, and if you play the average 2.5 hours per day and have two paid accounts, you’re paying about $0.35 American per hour to play EVE.  It doesn’t get much cheaper than that folks!  Cheers!

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, 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!

“Last month Ga’len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith “WebMandrill” Neilson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why?

——-

I was approached one day at a hole in the wall at CBD Corporation Storage in TEW by homely wench that offered to buy me a Gallente Brew of some sort.  Her interest in me was puzzling as I still wore my post-pod jumpsuit and really wasn’t in the mood for company.  I accepted the drink with a nod and mumbled a thanks.  I was still pissed at a near miss engagement I had with a Merlin a few systems away.

She was insistent on speaking with me.  She asked me my name.  We always had to watch for spies and being in an Amarr system made it even more important to do so.  I was gruff with her, but polite.  We may be freedom fighters to some, but in these systems we are terrorists to many and conversation is usually done in a dark corner away from prying ears.

I looked at her again.  She was Minmatar and attractive and I was in a station far from home.  Ahh, what the hell….

Following a few hours of conversation and more than a few drinks she got up the nerve to ask me what I was so pissed off about.

Aggression timer on gates!  I slammed my fist down on the table nearly spilling our drinks.

This has got to be the most insanely stupid thing in all of EVE (yes I know others will argue differently). There you are, in space by a gate, a War Target comes to the gate and yellow boxes you. You return the favour and as you’re alliance/corp has been decced by his or you decced them (distinction inconsequential) the need/want to keeeeel each other is mutual…. Or so you would think.

Reality is that your WT just baited you to agress so that that he (and/or his buddies) can jump through and not be followed by you for a short while giving them ample time to go run and hide in stations or jump to another gate. Sure he took some hits and you may have had him halfway through armor but he used you and you feel cheap. Yes, I’m stupid. I should have know he was going to do this, but I thought “this time” would be different … DOH!

We are at war with several entities at the moment and try as we might, they won’t engage in small numbers. They prefer safety in numbers despite the fact that some of them actually have skills to take us on. The Sir Robin affliction is so ingrained in to them by their alliance/corp that fleeing is just another tactic in war.  WTs should be treated differently when it comes to aggression in Empire space!

This Agression Timer just needs to go away and let us go about the business of war. We’ve paid CONCORD their bribe money and we should be allowed to go about the business of killing slavers without getting penalized by gate wardens that feel the need to protect the cowardly.

Turns out, she understood what I was talking about.   She was a transport pilot for a large corp moving equipment to and from the larger market hubs.  She’s used this little trick herself but can see where it would be detrimental to the war effort in my situation.

My outburst had attracted a little attention but as most people in the bar were scum I chose to ignore them.  She suggested we retire to some place more private where our conversations wouldn’t be listened to.

Life as a pod pilot’s not so bad at all.

——-

List of Participants:

1. Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!
2. EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
3. Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
4. The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
5. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, “Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!”
6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
7. Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
8. EVE’s Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
9. A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won’t You Die?
10. Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
11. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
12. Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
13. One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
14. Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
15. Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
16. A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
17. Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
18. Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
19. Facepalm’s Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
20. Memoires of New Eden, You’re Fired
21. Kyle Langdon’s Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What’s a Titan?
22. Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
23. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
24. I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
25. Ripe Lacunae, The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter #9)
26. Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
27. Estel Arador Corp Services, You’ve got mail
28. Epic Slant, Let Mom and Pop Play: EVE Blog Banter #9
29. Deaf Plasma’s EVE Musings, Blog Banter #9 – Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
30. Podded Once Again, Blog Banter #9 – Do we really need to go AFK?
31. Postcards from EVE, 2009.07.02.00.29.06
32. Harbinger Zero, Blog Banter #9 – War Declarations & Sec Status
33. Warp Scrammed, Blog Banter 9 – Never Too Fast
34. Ecaf Ersa (EVE Mag), Can a Tractor Tractor a Can?
35. Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary, EVE Blog Banter #9 – Aggression timers, WTs and Stargates
36. Mike Azariah, I don’t put much stock in it…
37. Rettic’s Log, Blog Banter: Overview Overload
38. A Sebiestor Scholar, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #9: Slaves
39. Diary of a pod pilot, [OOC] EVE blog banter #9: Because of Falcon
40. Roc’s Ramblings, Blog Banter #9 – Taking Things Slow

In the beginning…there was the Blob.

And the Blob was EVE, and EVE was the Blob.

And in the lag infested void of the nether reaches,  there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

And CCP did hear the lamentations of the unjustly Podded, and did pledge to correct this grievous oversight.

And verily, they upgraded the hardware, yet this did not suffice.

And verily, they upgraded the software, yet this did not suffice.

And then in the byzantine depths of their corporate boardrooms and computer kiosks,

from the minds of over caffeinated Icelandic artificers,

Did there come forth a great Epiphany!

And lo!  the mighty Titan was born.

And verily, the multitude spoke, and they said:

Oh Bugger.

Click here to read more.. »

Welcome to the eighth 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 otherEVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

Log entry: stardate…. <blip> *Damn Minmatar technology* Now where did I put that duct tape…..

Dreams last night where disturbing. Factional War had broken between the Minmatar tribes and the Amarr in the borderlands and the heroes of the republic were being kept from joining their brethren by a large conga line of CONCORD Battle Cruisers, Capitals and a strange looking (very phallic shaped) Titan. They had ships stationed at all gates coming from 0.0 space forbidding all access to the war front.

If I hadn’t been in my pod, I would probably be sweating. I mean, who has ever heard of anyone forbidding anyone from participating in action that directly affects their Tribal brethren. Slavery is wrong and all free citizens of New Eden should have the opportunity to act upon this direct act of aggression by the slavers. The Republic wouldn’t stand for it and neither would we.

It’s a bit fuzzy, as dreams sometimes are, but I seem to recall a CONCORD statement about allowing individual corporations but not alliances. But that can’t be right. Alliances such as Ushra’Khan and Electus Matari are on the forefront of the struggle. The battles would be epic. The Glory Great! The absolute Defeat of the enemy would be inevitable!

Our voices will be heard!

But it was just a dream ….  wasn’t it?

BLOOD FOR FREEDOM.

WE COME FOR OUR PEOPLE.

List of Participants:

Standing in the dark observation room of the Curse Watchtower a figure moved.

His eyes peering out into the vastness of space. The lines on his face a history of the revolutionary struggle and yet a reflection of serenity that comes from many lifetimes of understanding why it had to be done.

His mind wandered carelessly through mental images of his physical life wondering what / where his soul would take him. His tribe had taught him that once his physical shell was given back to space his soul would enter the great halls of the Elders. If chosen, the warrior would join the others, the heroes of the seven tribes, in the greatest place of them all “Valhall”.  At the head of the table will sit the Elders of the great tribes and they will sit in judgment of his actions in this world.

The scrolls described this place of many homes in the otherwold.  His mind went over some of the verses he still remembered from when he was a child:

Sökkvabekk is the fourth, | where cool waves flow,
And amid their murmur it stands;
There daily do the Elders| and Warriors drink
In gladness from cups of gold.

The fifth is Glathsheim, | and gold-bright there
Stands Valhall stretching wide;
And there do the Elders | each day choose
The men who have fallen in fight.

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