Don't cry for me......

.. the truth is we always hated you.

With the patch to dominion, has come many many many great new improvements

• Mail - that is usable and easy to manage
• Browser - that actually works
• Fleet finder - wee hee can find a fleet without spamming the channels

But for me, the one that made me the most happy is the "report as isk spammer" under the context menu for characters.

Since playing with my wife in empire, I have again been reminded just what a scourge on the game isk spammers are, so any step to make reporting them a one-click experience is plus in my opinion.

Needless to say there will be abuse, but I think it will be easy to tell who is, or isn't, an isk spammer (transactions to lots of different characters, 3,000 mails offering 1b isk for only $49.99, etc).

Go CCP.....

Aside from that the impact of the changes, and just what it really means to me as a cap pilot was brought home by a couple of killmail

1. One Shot one kill
2. Damn sentry guns
3. Titan + Force Recon = Dead carrier

As a cap pilot, that DID use my carrier to run stuff to low sec from 0.0, all I can say is yikes...

cats and dogs living together....

.... flying pigs orbiting the house, ice skating in hell, etc...

My wife now has an Eve account.

Well this is not exactly the blog I was expecting to be finding myself writing.. I had planned at some point to write a blog on the fact I was again playing wow, and that it was with my wife.

I was planning to talk about some of the interesting comparisons between the two games, and in particular how that wow was much more new player friendly
...... and then she goes and decides to give eve a go after all.

Now, it's still early days (i.e. we're talking less than 24 hours), but it is interesting to see how the tutorial is compared to when I last went through it.

There is no question it is 100% more user friendly than when I did it, but it is still needing a bit more polish. I found myself several times leaning over to suggest smarter ways of doing certain tasks, ways that to me should have been being pointed out in the tutorial.

However despite this, the focus on introducing professions (the point she has reached due to only a short stint so far) is good to see. Eve has so many paths that it is vital the newer players are given a bit more of a heads up for what is possible.

The inclination of myself and the other individual that has strongly suggested she give it a go, is that she will go down the industrial path. However just as likely she could choose a mission running path, or trading, or.....

That is what truly special about eve, the fact that any person can choose any path, at any point in their game career. Be it a year or a single day after starting the game.

I'm trying to not over suggest any path, instead just (together with a mutual friend) contributing some isk to her starting fund, so no matter what she picks she hit the road running.

Long time no post....

The move out to Immensea and into Aggression, was (as no doubt most would know) a bit of a mistake....

The ability to get regular PvP lead to me have a lot of fun while we were there... Indeed I could safely say I went of some of my most enjoyable roams ever, while we were there.

However it soon became obvious that not everything was right... i.e. cyno jamming of station systems, but not communicating the location of jump bridges so caps could be moved in and out of the systems.

The public "emo" nature of the implosion, left those of us out in Immensea with a narrow time frame to get out before the eventual piling in of hostiles. Luckily my carrier gave me the facility to get my T2 ships, and those of my friends, out. However, I had to self destruct all my Battleships, as the risks in trying to get them out at that point was just getting a bit too high - Insurance Fraud ftw.

Luckily, my time in empire (again) was short, with a friend from our time in BPINC sponsoring a number of us from ZZK into Morsus Mihi, via what is turning out to be one fantastic corporation.
Unfortunately my bad luck did continue a bit longer, and over a short time frame I managed to lose two ravens, and two hulks in less than a couple of days.

At one point I got to the point of having less than 40m between all of my characters, but luckily this has climbed a bit recently, with me choosing to liquidise some assets (i.e. selling my dread to the corp).

Indeed much of that isk has now been invested into long term isk making ventures, as I am utterly sick of not having any regular income... i.e. I'm getting into inventing and t2 production.

Also another development is that my wife showed some interest in playing a MMO, and as much as I love Eve I could not recommend it as a first MMO, and so (together with her) I am once again playing WOW (stop the hissing), albeit extremely casually.

Anyhow, this is just a quick blog to say I am still alive, and still playing eve (albeit on a short sabbatical right at the moment).

Indeed with some of the above developments I have some material to blog on, so I will be getting some more out over the next week or so...

Oh well.....

Much has happened since my last post.... both within Eve, and outside. The key events being...

• The ongoing war between ED/IRC and RA/friends which has now continued unabated for longer than most would have expected.
• Real life jumping up and biting my wife and I in real life, i.e. my wife was made redundant from her job.

Even though my lovely wife rejected my offer of closing some accounts, I decided to at least try and cover some cost via the purchase of plex passes, through the generation of isk. At the time the only way available was a return to empire...

With my selection of characters, I decided to try my hand and empire mining, utilising two characters (specced for mining 'Gormn and Mollernak') in hulks, with a third in an orca proving bonuses and hauling capacity. However after time in 0.0 mining, the returns from this exercise were demoralising to say the least.

Meanwhile the burnout being felt by some within Cassus Beli, both in terms of morale, ships, and isk was starting to show. Following several discussions a decision to look for a new home was made, and Cassus Beli left Ethereal Dawn

The small size of a corp resulted in it being rapidly made clear we simply did not have the size to gain access to a new 0.0 alliance. However at the same time we were looking to leave a fellow corporation within ED had made the same decision - Zip Zoom Kaboom (ZZK).

The ceo of said corp was a close friend of our ceo; and we all seemed to get along, so the decision was made by Cassus Beli to merge into ZZK, and ZZK welcomed us all in to the corp.

With that decision also came a decision to return to 0.0, albeit this time as a member of Aggression alliance in Immensea. As a result I have spent most the weekend moving ships, and gear out into a new home.

Indeed this is a big change a new home, a new region; as my 0.0 life up to now has always been within Drone Regions. The change in region means no more drone rats, but proper bounty rats. Hopefully this help with my plan to fund at least my third account via plex passes.

Also old enemies are now friends (i.e. Atlas alliance), which will be fun as many of their pilots I have respected fromt he other side. Though luckily some enemies remain the same, i.e. RA alliance.

Interesting days and weeks ahead....

Frigates down......

Well not in the sense you'd expect....

As of early yesterday my character Mollernak gained the ability to fly Amarr T2 frigates destroyers (having earlier gained the ability to use T2 lasers).

In itself this is no major achievement, however this is the fourth race I have now reached this achievement for. As such I have the ability to fly every T2 frigate and regular Interdictor in the game.

The funny thing is that I have never hopped into any Amarr ship, and so only know them as targets. To the point I didn't even know which laser type was long range, and which was short range; all I know is that they are armour tankers, use lasers, and need lots of cap.

So now begins the slow process of determining; which Amarr frigates deserve a place in my ship hangers, and what is the best way to fit them.

As always I plan to start with the interceptors, Malediction and Crusader; so if anyone has advice please feel free to share it with me.

Once I have finished small beam/pulse specialisation skills to level IV, I will begin the train to be able to use the T2 Amarr cruisers, with T2 lasers, so pilgrim/curse/zealot/etc here I come.

Love the smell of vodka burning in the morning.....

The Insmother war continues apace....


Constant battles rang between us and our allies, against the various forces that we face.


The fights have been good, and so far I'm finding myself on the positive side of the balance sheet; with more killed, than destroyed. So far losses include; a Taranis, a Rapier, a Hound, a Megathron, and only a single pod so far.


The Megathron was unfortunately to a friendly DD, but that is par for the course when operating with Titans, and I should have considered the possibility of desync, before hugging the pos shield edge so closely.


It has been a lot of fun, and there have been some fights truly worth the 'GF' in local that comes where earned from both sides.


Indeed, that during fights it's not uncommon to see people losing more than one ot two ships in under 5 minutes; because they come straight back in another ship when popped, is a sign of some great pvp, and determination of both parties.


For me however, this weekend is now over, my timezone returns me as one of the first to the day we all dread on weekends like we have been having - Monday.

^bump^

Dire Lauthris's Day of Darkness II short is just pure fantastic genius....

Enough can't be said about this video (Eve online thread), and it is fully deserving of the praise, so I'm bumping it in case someone hasn't seen it yet, and no matter what make sure you download the full resolution version.

WTM's characters all walk over to the hanger and group hug Gormn's Chimera.

We don't need no water...........

As x1376 has already highlighted, and blogged from the front lines on... Intrepid Crossing (his alliance) and Ethereal Dawn (mine) have gone to war with Red Alliance.

... and the Goons have reset us to neutral (which to Empire dwellers means they can and will shoot us now) for their own reasons.

Needless to say this has sparked the usual lol thread on CAOD...  but I have absolutely no intention on commenting on any of that rubbish, after all it is nothing more than the glossy tabloid of life in 0.0

Personally I am just happy to get some regular fleet pvp!!

Let loose the dogs of war....

Blog Banter - It's my party, and I'll alt if I want to....

Link Kirith I was forgotten this month, but like him I am still inclined to post about this months blog banter.

Edit. Turns out CK sent the email the day of the gmail outage, so many of us didn't get the mail. No doubt this will spread the posting over several days, but that may be well be a plus.

- oh and I retitled the post.

Welcome to the fifth 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

This month’s topic comes to us from Mynxee of Life in Low Sec. She asks "Alts and Metagaming: Is playing two accounts who are logged in at the same time and work together (hauler/miner, explorer/combat associate, trade alts in trade hubs) a form of metagaming that is 'ruining the game'?"

Firstly, as is no doubt to anyone who even just read my last post, I am a dual boxer (well to be exact I am now a triple boxer).

There is no doubt, in my mind that it is a form of metagaming.   However it isan accepted form, and is indeed encouraged some what by the publisher (power-of-two anyone?).

However you would still expect a clear 100% "No, it doesn't ruin the game", but to be honest I don't think it is as clear as that.

I myself started dual-boxing 6 months into my Eve career, though it was never my intention in creating the 2nd account to do so. Indeed my intention with Mollernak originally was to be able to try out piracy, while Gormn remained safe (with a positive sec status) in high sec.

However quickly the idea of using Moll to haul ore back to station, while Gormn would continue to mine, became appealing. In less than a month the original plan to keep them separate disappeared, and instead I was dual boxing.

How I came to triple box was covered in my last post, so won't cover that again.....

So why multi box?

For me the multi-account playing, from a PvE and isk making perspective, has allowed me to:

1. Rat or Mission run - with one account shooting rats, while another salvages and collects loot
2. Mine - with one or two mining while another guards against rats, or does hauling

In both cases the result being a vasty increased efficiency and effectiveness.

For PvP though I generally do not multi-box, the only exception is that when I do field Gormn in a carrier I have sometimes also fielded Mollernak/Kahamahl (either as a cyno pilot or fighter bombing in a fast mover).

However the risks of losing one ship, while playing the other overwhelm any potential benefit of trying to fly two ships in combat at once.  It can be simply to difficult to keep track of two during PvP, or even too risky in laggy environments.

But back to the original question, is multi-account playing ruining the game?

The short version is still no, it's not ruining the game.

With the increased revenue of two or more characters, comes also the expenses incurred by that number of players (i.e. you have two sets of skills, ships, modules, etc to buy).

In addition this is also ignoring the additional cost of the account (be it in isk or $s) to the person in RL...

The only real tangible issue with multi-accounting is when people use it to gain an advantage that is not available to some one with a single account (and hence main), i.e. spying, corp thefts, scamming, etc... Now that's not to say I against these types of actions (well okay I usually am), but it's the fact that by using a separate account to do this allows someone to do it with no risk to their real "main"..  

By using an alt account to spy, the enemy has simply no real in game way to detect, or track, you down subsequently for vengeance or payback.  In short it creates the means for the "perfect crime".

Myself, have always been up front that I have multiple accounts, well at least if challenged. 

Separate accounts, and hence multiple mains has allowed me to experience so much more of the game, than would have otherwise been possible.  

I can field a carrier or dread, but then on the other hand I can also put some one in one of six possible recons, or in one of 6 interceptors, and so on....  This is BECAUSE I was able to specialise my two mains down two distinct skill paths. 

With a single character I would probably have ended up struggling to ever achieve what I have done in the game.  

For that reason alone, I am in no way inclined to ever give up my additional accounts.

However often people make snaky comments about multi-account players, that we "cheat" that we have an unfair advantage, etc... and it is the creation of this attitude itself that is why, potentially, multi-accounts could ruin the game (however unlikely that may be).

If I had my way, I would like to see CCP institute some method to link a person's various accounts, so that others are made quickly aware they are dealing with a single (rather than two) people.

Obviously it would need to be something that would not be so obvious to give other people advantage either (sorry pirates), but in engaging with someone for recruitment, contracts, etc you can see they are a dual-boxer...

That would IMHO resolve the worst negative of dual-boxing... 

Final answer - no it is not ruining the game, the impact is over exaggerated, and in reality it is peoples money and time to spend how the like.

Adapt or die, and you you just have to accept some of us just choose to adapt by having multiple accounts.

Participants:

• Epic Misadventures, This is my Alt - There are many like it but this one is mine.
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, I Missed This Month's Blog Banter!
• A Mule in EvE, Meta what? Is it hurting EvE?
• Morphisat's EVE Online Blog, Me, Myself and I
• One Man And His Spaceship, Me and My Shadow
• Ombeve, Blog Banter edition 5
• Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche, CK's Blog Banter #5: Everybody Needs Somebody
• Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter
• Ecliptic Rift, OOC: Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
• The Ralpha Dogs, Me, Myself and I
• Mad Rant, "Blog Banter - It's my party, and I'll alt if I want to...."
• EVE Chick, The Handicapper General
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "...you see mate, it's a matter of leverage, savvy?..."
• New Eden Diaries, It's only a game
• Oz’s House of the Evil Dead, If You Can’t Ride Two Horses At Once, You Shouldn’t Be In The Circus
• Diving into PsycheDiver's Psyche, Everybody Needs Somebody
• CrazyKinux's Musing, Leave what you know at the door please!
• Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
• EvE - Wotlankor, [OOC] Alts and Metagaming
• Roc's Ramblings, February Blog Banter - Meta Me
• Drunk in Space, Metagaming....so that's the name.
• X1376's Space Odyssey, Blog Banter #5: Army of One
• A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #5: Uh...
  
• Zero Kelvin, Are alts ruining the game?
• DeafPlasma's EVE Musings, Blog Banter #5: Alts & me!
• I am Keith Nielson, EVE is All About the Metagame
• Everyday EvE, Two Accounts Edition
• Blogging from inside the pod, EVE Blog Banter #5: Arletta and I
• Speed Fairy, Meet Paul
• More coming as the articles post!!

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go.....

As mentioned previously I have been part of a reformation of an old corp a group of were all members two years ago.

As part of that I decided to leave faction warfare, and bring Kahamahl out to 0.0

Kahamahl had reached a stage in his training where he gained the ability to use not only interceptors and assault frigates, but also the covert ops frigate, cov ops cloak, and cyno generator. Making him a perfect cyno character to get Gormn into hostile systems, or even to just move Gormn around quickly.

The thought of using all three accounts at once never once occurred to me. The last time I had attempted it, it had failed miserably with unbearable lag resulting.

As such I never looked further into the idea of running three at once, and anyway with Kahamahl in faction warfare there was little point.

It was the sudden realisation that Mollernak was only a couple of hours from flying a hulk, and a mere month from T2 strip miners and crystals, that suddenly the idea of three at once reappeared.

To test the possibility of doing this required nothing more than turning down the client settings, and attempting to log in three characters.....

...... and it worked.

Within a few days Mollernak was in a hulk (although with T1 strips) and together with Gormn stripping belts of Arkanor, Bistot, and Crokite asteroids; while Kahamahl provided drone tanking duties in his new dominix ratter....

To say this new set up increased productivity, would be understate just what a difference it made.

Ratting in the drone regions has long been the best means to make isk, with a single ratting character more than able to outclass a hulk in terms of making isk.

With two hulks, the ability to suck ore near doubled, and the marginal gain vastly exceeded the opportunity cost of ratting.

Recent events, i.e. a trip to Delve to assist our Goon friends with the removal of Kenny, have meant the use of this setup was short lived, but I look forward to returning to mine in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, Gormn has finished all the prerequisites to fly a Rorqual, and use the industrial Core - i.e. can compress and move large amounts or ore easily. Just a case of buying the two skills needed, and either borrow (and eventually buy) a Rorqual to speed up the mining process..

So... Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to mine I go.........

Blackout

You'll have to excuse this one little bit of non-eve bloggage...

On 28 February 2009 comes into effect, in New Zealand, a deeply flawed piece of copyright law that essentially allows copyright holders the ability to have any IP address disconnected on the basis of their accusation alone.

There is no "standard of evidence" defined, no level of proof, that the copyright holder must provide the ISP, merely the accusation is enough.

Efforts have been made to drum out a workable solution, but the media companies have rejected the proposed "code of conduct" and have instead made demands that effectively leave the ISPs in a no win situation - breech of contract with the customer, or legal action in the face of the copyright law (as per the iinet case in Australia).

As a result a Blackout has been organised.. 

"The controversial law reverses New Zealander's fundamental right to being presumed innocent until proven guilty, punishing internet users with disconnection based accusations of copyright infringement without a trial and without evidence held up to court scrutiny.

The blackout has already drawn international support: world renowned actor, comedian and author Stephen Fry has blacked out his twitter profile stating that “Stephen Fry is blacked out: Stand up against Guilt Upon Accusation for New Zealand”
The movement is rapidly growing, with thousands of people in New Zealand modifying their websites, blogs, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter and Bebo accounts to show their opposition to the law. Instructions on how to take part in the blackout can be found on www.CreativeFreedom.org.nz

The blackout is part of a week of action against S92. A S92 song remix challenge will be announced tomorrow, and various other initiatives including video commercials and radio broadcasts will follow.

The week will culminate in a major web blackout on Monday the 23rd seeing blogs and websites “dimming the lights” as a means of drawing attention to the issue that could leave New Zealander's in the dark when they face having their internet cut off. Hundreds of confirmed participants include Kiwiblog, Zoomin and Public Address with more to be announced over the coming week." - Creative Freedom press release

Several others, vastly more knowledgeable (and articulate) have documented the issues with this law in the following blogs, and I would suggest anyone interested follow up on these...

• Creative Freedom Foundation's explanation of the issue with the law.
  
• David Farrar's guest column on another blog to his own (Kiwiblog)
  
• Russell Brown's further analysis 
• Kiwiblog questioning why the new government is enacting this bad law?

They/we/it/I pulled us/them/it/me back in..........

With the new year finally over and done with, I have to report that I have over the new year left my last corp, "Best Path Incorporated", and participated in the reforming of an old corp that I had previously been a member of....

Cassus Belli

This was in fact the 2nd player corporation that I joined playing Eve, and was the corporation that had  introduced me to 0.0.  

At the time however it turned out at the time time that, as a corporation, we were not ready for 0.0.  As a result, for various reasons and individual desires, the corp decided to disband.

We headed in various directions, and career paths, with some remaining behind and joining another corporation within the alliance.  However we all remained in touch, and spoke weekly, if not daily, with each other.

Over the past year a number of us (including our old CEO) found ourselves in the all in the same fantastic corp (BPINC). As always some our conversations revolved how we would run CB now (knowing and being capable of that much more now).

At Christmas 4 of decided to actually give it a go, and to try a particular approach that we had discussed, and CB was resurrected from a holding corp.

The four of us bring to the corp a significant capital capability (more characters that can capitals than actual members), as well as significant industry capability (mining, production, T2 invention, etc).

At this stage we seem more than capable of providing for ourselves, but if that was all we wanted to do, we should have stayed in Best Path... 

What we really want though, is people!  We want to create a nice big family of people working together to achieve everything they want to achieve....

Recruitment is open, but we admit to not being really active at it....  

We know what we are looking for in a person, but articulating that is the hard bit....  

However what we do know is what we are looking for in terms of a character, i.e. can fly a BS or barge (to rat of mine), and isn't an "alt". Oh, and not a trial account, but otherwise we are open to anyone (we remember what it is like to have low skill points, and are happy to help you out).

Any how, these should be a few interesting months....

That all said, I think I speak for us all when I say we were very say to leave Best Path, they are truly a fantastic corp, and would recommend them to anyone.  However, some times you have to endure short term pain, to achieve long term gain.

Queue the ewoks.......

Band of Brothers as we all knew it has been dealt a truly massive blow today (the news wires are on fire.....).

With the actions of a single (now ex-) director in two of the key corps within the BOB alliance, their entire alliance was disbanded, and all of their sovereignty lost.

This is drama of the highest order, with the impact of this barely fathomable.  BOB has lost ALL of the following:

• Cyno beacons
  
• Cyno jammers
  
• Jump bridges
  
• Capital systems
  
• Titan production facilities

To re-establish this requires a significant investment of time, but ignores that through the loss of sovereignty they lost all their advantages of home territory.

These coming days will be interesting....

No doubt over the weekend we will see a sudden flood of hostile capitals moving into the BOB areas, with the intention of denying them any ability to reclaim sovereignty..

Now if you excuse me, I'm off to join the Ewoks dancing round the bonfire....

Details

• SHC discussion
  
• Goonfleet briefing
  
• Caod post

Carrier go BOOM!!!

Well, it finally happened...

As X1376 has already mentioned, IRC and ED are down south helping our allies, Goonfleet.

The reasons for why we have gone are many, but personally the fact they came to help us, and lost a titan, in our home system when we were seiged by RK/SMASH/Atlas has something to do with it.

Also the idea of AAA and BOB as neighbours doesn't appeal....

Moving our fleets down to join the battle took literally hours of travel (at least for sub-caps) and even for the caps required multiple jumps even to just reach the staging system. As an idea of the scope, the caps brought with them a jump freighter of fuel.

Once we had all arrived, refuelled, and had the required bio breaks; the time came to move out, and towards the final destination (0-w). Which involved jumping to a Goon jump bridge, via which we were to enter the system.

The sheer number of caps involved, necessitated that the bridge would have to be constantly refilled, but after a period we all arrived in system. With local standing at over 900 people in system the lag monster was present, and no doubt was expected to be a factor. The order to align came.... and we all dutifully aligned, the fleet of caps beautifully pointed in the same direction at full speed awaiting the order to warp.

Suddenly an IRC carrier reported that they had been emergency warped off due to the lag, and had found himself scanned down and tackled before they could warp back. The FC ordered the carriers to warp to him, in an attempt to keep him alive, while the Dreads would continue on to complete their mission to engage an enemy POS.

Upon arriving in my carrier to help save the tackled carrier, the situation appeared relatively benign, and I quickly locked the friendly carrier and applied my capital shield transfer.

Some time after the beginning of the rescue the lag began to pass, and I found myself subjected to a significant jamming attempt, and the size of the enemy fleet suddenly became apparent - 170+ ships...

Versus a significant BS fleet with a significant amount of ewar and dictors, with no hope of rescue; we simply had no chance.

One by one the carriers began to fall.

The FC apologised to us; that unfortunately we had to die, and that there was nothing the rest of the cap fleet could do, or indeed any of the support fleets either. There simply wasn't the assets available to stage a rescue (against that firepower).

When my turn came (2nd to last carrier) and I was primaried, the sheer amount of DPS was horrifying. My capital shield booster had no chance of standing up to it, and my tank collapsed like a butter sculpture in the middle of the desert.

• From my killmail alone there were 152 ships involved including:-
  105 Battleships (the only T1 ships involved)
  18 HACs
  12 T2 Tackle (including 4 Interdictors)
  8 e-war (including 7 Falcons alone)
  3 Command ships

With the explosion, and subsequent popping of my pod, I found myself suddenly back in station.
The commiserations were quick to come, but the reality was that I simply didn't mind. The carrier had lasted a year, when in fact I had always expected to lose it within a couple of months.

I have always viewed every undocked ship as lost, so this was no exception.

Although I wasn't able to attend the following days fight, I was able to attend the one two days later, in a carrier loaned from my corp, and was back in the fight. Indeed a replacement carrier has already been obtained, and is only awaiting fitting before being ready to rejoin the fight next weekend.

War is fun