Life Of A Caldari

I’ll keep this short. A few months ago I moved home and ended up having to play on an incredibly basic PC which resulted in the loss of a few manticores which had me booted from the corp I was in.  Can’t blame them, I was a new member getting ganked for blindly flying with a terrible PC. But then I got a new laptop and played again and, for some reason, lost all interest in EVE.

I know, that must be blasphemous here but I did, and I haven’t played for months.

Then, after a long time spent saying that I’d get back into EVE and putting it off for whatever reason was closest to hand I didn’t, and then, after reading a lot about Star Trek Online, I signed up, pre-ordered and got on the open beta.

I thought that STO offered something similar but equally different to EVE that I might enjoy more, after all, Warcraft in space sounded good to me. And after playing the open beta which I thoroughly enjoyed, I felt like something was missing. I remembered the first time I played EVE and was faced with what felt like a wall of  knowledge I had to overcome,  I missed the sense of vulnerability I had knowing that the game wasn’t on my side.

STO is on your side, which is great for some people, but playing a game where I know that I can’t get scammed or ganked by a load of pirates made me want to play EVE again. Although I will be playing STO aswell, it managed to re-ignite my desire for EVE and reminded me of how actual risk and a sense of loss can bring to a game.

Which is something no other game provides.

And the question, has this happened to anyone else?

First off this sounds great, I was always hoping for some other way of enjoying the Eve universe and was hoping for a console FPS every since CCP said they were looking into console development.

Will it work?

Being a console gamer primarily, despite spending a lot of time in New Eden and having two accounts, I know just how popular FPS multiplayer is. Long after the single-player campaign is over multiplayer keeps on kicking. But there is the first hurdle, console gamers are used to there FPSes having a singleplayer campaign. Granted some people dont always care about the story or the reason for why your on a planet blasting super soldiers in the face but with Eve it could be very different. If your just thrown into a universe where your fighting for control of somewhere for fun it’s all good, but will the control pad crowd want to take orders from someone on a keyboard in a different game?

Multiplayer on console revolves around deathmatch and team-deathmatch, quick fights where you jump in, have some fun then leave. We don’t really plan ahead to meet up and take someone on, granted you have clans who might meet up a few times a week but thats not the norm and with all thats being contested in New Eden will they really want to turn up and defend a zone instead of playing Madden or Fifa?

And how will these zones be contested? You cant expect someone to defend an area if there not online, the same goes for capturing a zone, one way would be to have set times of when people are taking a zone, such as deciding to invade and the defenders are sent a warning to their Live or PSN account that they are being attacked in 24 hours, almost like the wardec system, to give them some time to prepare.

But on consoles we look for kills, holding some ground for some space pilots in the sky doesn’t sound great, if the fights can be short and fun then great for planetside, but space farers could see there planets lost in a few hours.

Subscriptions

Currently FPSes on console are not subscription based, you buy the game and play, maybe buy some new maps, but the core is free. Many console gamers find the thought of paying monthly for a game a rip off, we live in a land of sequels, we will gladly pay for a new game because it promises something new, new maps, weapons and a fresh challenge even if it is pretty much the same game. Most now offer ranking and levelling systems within the multiplayer side to keep people playing and buying new maps, its an incentive to better your character, bragging rights, access to new weapons, but all with the main goal of keeping people playing. Now with Dust what incentives will there be? If alliances can fund you and supply you with what you need, whats to stop some Dust corps being heavily invested in from day one and having all they need and finding there enemies are nowhere near as powerful, this would create a system like Eve where the huge alliances battle each other and smaller alliances and corps have the little fights, no console gamer would be happy with being left out of the big fights because people aren’t buying them things they need, we dont like the thought of being limited because of other peoples lack of funds.

There would need to be a console only element for deathmatches and the like, where the players have to earn the skill to use certain weapons and vehicles that they can use in capturing planets for pilots, it would stop any chance of a power gap between corps due to being handed all the best weapons and would give us console gamers that all important incentive to keep playing.

Also we would need to be given the ability to take over planets ourselves, thereby letting us build our own little empires which Eve players would need to hire other Dust players to remove from there planets, if console gamers feel they are making a difference and not just the hired hands we might pay a subscription.

Final Thoughts

Dust is going to need a perfect launch, with a solid console only element to keep us entertained while CCP iron out and balance the crossover element as I imagine will be needed shortly after launch. We arent the kind of gamers who will continue to play something in the promise that it’ll be fixed soon unless there are other elements to enjoy, especially if we’re paying monthly. Hopefully they’ll go the boxed buy once route, then release some new maps, or planets for us to pay for and fight on when not helping out the pilots. Or they could see how The Agency and DC Universe fare on PS3 and whether console gamers even want an MMO.

A few weeks back I went on holiday and had some time away from New Eden, on my return I noticed that something was up.

Corp chat wasn’t as busy as usual and something felt a little off. I got chatting with one of the members and it turned out that things weren’t going well, our CEO hadn’t been seen in a fortnight and the industrial team of the corp had left.

After a few clicks I found that they had started there own corp including the head of our wormhole op. This worried me slightly as I had left three mining barges in wormhole and a cruiser, so I got talking to the ex-members to find out if they had my ships.

The news really wasn’t great, it turns out that our CEO gave access to our WH hangar array to a fairly new member who said he wanted to help out there. Given an opportunity like that he stole all he could and destroyed everything else, because our WH op never saw a huge amount of involvement, only a few of us were there full time, it was easy pickings.

After hearing this and seeing in Alliance chat that a few corps had left and more thinking of leaving I decided to do the same and join my ex-corpmates.

We all know and trust eachother and we all vote on new members and also for the time being we’ve capped membership numbers. This is what should have been done in the last corp, instead of trying to massively increase our numbers week on week without any defined goals lead to people just flying about doing there own thing and loads of damned wardecs, we all knew we had a spy but finding out who it is with new members joining everyday, many of whom could be spies, is impossible.

So a little tip to anyone planning on starting a corp, do it with people you trust and remember that just because you have the numbers doesn’t mean you’re strong, a small focused corp is far more effective than an aimless giant.

Hi all who read this, my adventures continue but this time in a class 3 WH with corp back up and a nice little base. Problem is since I got here I’m the only guy with a battleship and because I get restless I decided to take on some sleepers solo.

Now this can be done fairly easily, first off you’ll need some sites, if your in a small system, around 32 AU across and cant be bothered to probe warp yourself to a planet close to the star at the center and do a system scan.

This should give you quite a few sites, I recommend appraoching an Outpost Frontier Deposit as they can be solo’d to an extent.

Warp in at 100km and you should see 3 Argos turrets and a Sleepless defender, you should bookmark where you arrived after warping just incase you arrive within their firing range.

Remember which planet you warped from or the one nearest your POS as you will need to align as soon as the Defender engages. Approach the defender and have him engage you, at this point the turrets might have opened fire, when the Defender begins his approach align to the planet you came from. Try and hold on for as long as you can with the sleeper in pursuit, when you need to warp do it, recharge then warp to the bookmark you made, depending on how long the sleeper followed for adjust the warp to amount. Use the same tactic to get the target to follow you so you are out of range of the Argos turrets, there range is 90km or there abouts.

After this, get the datacores and repeat for the wave of 4 Awakened Defenders but leave the last one alive and concentrate on the turrets, collect the datacores and kill the 4th when your ready for the third wave.

Hope that helps someone, haven’t figured out the third wave yet, I’ll post soon when I’m sure it works.

Update: I’m using an omni tank raven with 6 launchers with wrath missiles,  can’t take down 3rd wave yet but if your planning on salvaging and getting T3 stuff, leave the 3rd wave until you have a way of getting what you need, not sure if theres another wave and you don’t want it despawning when you leave!

So far salvager 1 hasn’t worked on the wrecks so have someone with good salvaging skills if you don’t

Just went out to buy a copy of the EVE retail box, I’ve wanted a second account for a while now and had some cash spare and decided to get it, but what do I find, the bloody GTC Card is missing!!

Problem is this was the last copy in the store and I couldn’t find another one in town, looks like I’ll have to wait for that second account now.

After hours of painfully slow probing and hiding from sleepers I finally, on my third day, became hateful towards my wormhole shaped prison.

I spent hours scanning down the sites and waiting for WHs to spawn and when they did, it was always to another. At this point I realised that waiting for a way to known space was going to take too long, so I decided to take the door marked “suicide”.

It took a while to decide this, with the way I’d been spending isk in the past few months without much income to fill my wallet, I wasn’t looking forward to losing a ship, let alone my implants.

So I headed out towards a Frontier Barracks to try and take some sleepers with me, I failed, miserably.

With my ship gone I activated the self-destruct on my POD and said my goodbyes to the wormhole I ruled over for three days and then……… my clone activated.

Tasting freedom for the first time in days was a joy, seeing other pilots in space and being able to do anything I wanted again, I was happy. At least I learnt some lessons, well one anyway, don’t jump through WHs solo in a Drake.

I think I’ll rest for a few days, mining with friends should do, at least I won’t get lost.

Yesterday I decided to start probing for a new wormhole for our corp to set up shop in as our other one has dried up.

So I head out in my drake and start probing around HiSec, after a few hours I come across a nice new shiny wormhole and head on through to check it out. Turns out class 5 wormholes spawn in HiSec, with a Red Giant no less, some nice smartbomb bonuses in here.

Unfortunately I let the excitment get the better of my and didn’t bookmark, schoolboy error there. I fly around the place, nice and empty system, but it was decided it was to risky to set up in here so I try and scan down the way in and find a wormhole.

Jump through hoping to get back, it only leads me to a bloody class 4 instead, at this point we decide to move into this one if I can find a way out, after hours of probing later and finding 22 sites I get another wormhole and jump through.

Another bloody class 4!!! At this point I got annoyed and went to bed, destined to wonder around my kingdom of empty wormholes. Hopefully today I’ll find a way out through one of these holes and we can start moving in, after all how often is it you find three empty connected systems. As long as I can actually get out.

Just over a month ago I finally got back into EVE after a bit of time away and it has been a reminder of how fun, frustrating and exciting it can be.

I started my return by finding a Corp in Empire that was based close to where all my stuff is, I really wasnt in the mood for flying all my ships and hauling in my Badger to join a corp.

I found a corp that seemed right for me, the main point was wormhole ops, I stilled hadn’t travelled into unexplored space and the thought of going somewhere unknown and new sounded like fun.

Sleepers are a nice change from NPC rats, even salvaging wrecks was fun and defending the miners in wormhole wasn’t too bad, everyone knows EVE is best when your in a corp, and having a base in wormhole was something new and enjoyable.

But life is never easy, a war declaration especially so. Lost quite a few ships, then another war dec, lost one to that lot.

Then during all this, a senior member of the corp stole a lot of equipment from our little base in wormhole and did a runner, while another former member decided to lead some mercs to our POS for some crazed revenge over something, not sure what though.

Not much detail in this post, but it is the first of many, and my first call of action now is revenge!

I don’t think I’ll be leaving EVE for a long long time.