Ho Ho Ho!

So I woke up and realized that we got our Christmas presents from CCP today.  I currently only have one account so my list is rather limited, but eventually I'm sure I'll collect it all, especially the ships, I love ships, I need collectors ships.

Sukuuvestaa Heron x 1
Public Portrait: How To x 1
NEO YC 114: Much Crying Old Experts x 1
NEO YC 114: Oxygen Isonopes x 1
Snowball CXIV x 300
Concordokken x 1
NEO YC 114: My Little Nulli x 1
Genolution Core Augmentation CA-1 x 1
Carbon x 1
Boots.ini x 1

I would like to say how much I love how CCP did it this year.  The problem with giving out collectable items to all the players is that they immediately become worthless because everyone has it.  Seriously, go look at the value of a Zephyr, or Apotheosis, pennies.  Everyone active at the time got one.  Yes their limited edition, yes their cool, but their basically worthless.  Does anyone who calls themselves a collector not have one? 

The way CCP did it this year was perfect.  Everyone gets some cool collectors stuff, yet they all keep some intrinsic collectors value because the market isn't going to be flooded with them for eternity.  No, they aren't a Silver Magnate or Malice, but you also can't pick everything up for pennies either.  Well done. 

As a side note the only two things I really wanted was the boots.ini and the Concordokken, and I got them, so it's been a great Christmas so far!

You Can Take The Player Out Of Eve...

Well that was a little awkward, putting up a return to blogging post and following it with nothing for another couple of months.  I honestly thought I would continue, but truthfully, my interest in Eve basically fell to nothing and my desire to blog went with it.  Personal issues in real life have a tendency to do that I guess.

Anyway I actually am going to return this time.  I find I love writing, hell I've even started writing a book!  Don't worry, it won't end up being any good (probably), but I recently read an article that shamed me to do more with my life than watch TV.  Writing is something I enjoy, and it's always been a dream of mine to write a novel.  So we'll see what happens with it.  If I get it published (HA!) I'll be thrilled, but if not, at least I created something instead of just devouring the creations of others.

And in the end my love of writing is why I'm back to blogging, for real this time.  Eve is a passion of mine, the nuance of the meta-game, the skill required to fly your ship, or fit it, or trade, everything.  And writing about it is enjoyable to me, even if I don't have many readers yet.  So I'll have some thoughts over the next couple of days, then I'm heading off to Chicago for Christmas with the family. Maybe I'll even write some Eve fiction stories.

So assuming the world doesn't end tomorrow, expect more from me.

Back To The Grindstone

Just a heads up that I'm finally back to the game, what has it been?  2 Months?  That thing called real life can sure get in the way of video games.  I'll probably start posting again this week, I just have to see if I remember how to play Eve...

AFG

For the two or three of you that actually read this, don't expect many updates over the next month.  I'm currently in the process of moving and as such I won't have much time for gaming.  I'll be sure to pick up activity after everything has settled down. 

WTFB: Be Careful With Drunk Forum Posting

You know those great ideas you have when you're drunk?  Like jumping off the roof of your house; yeah guess what, they usually aren't great ideas.  This continues to forum posting.  I've had a few instances where I posted something and the next day I just scratched my head and wondered why I was possessed with such stupidity.  It makes you look like you need to go back in the womb for a while and cook some more.  Those brilliant ideas that will fix the game forever, like completely removing CONCORD, usually aren't fully vetted in your mind when you've been drinking.

If you've got something important to say, and you're drunk, think about it long and hard.  Remember, the people reading it don't know your drunk, but they do know that you're an idiot.

Fit Of The Week - Battle Burst!

This won't be you're average Fit Of The Week that many bloggers do; i.e. something I know works or a cool fit I found on a killboard somewhere.

Instead, each week I will fit out a ship in a way I've never done before and go out and see how it does.  Some will be serious, some lol, some off-the-wall, and some will probably make you think that I should probably stop playing this game and go suck on a pacifier.  When I am finished with my test I'll post the fit here and give you an AAR to tell you how it went.  Most of these fits will be solo, but there will be a few fleet fits as well.  Expect lots of failures and embarrassing loss-mails in my future.

To start it off, and in honor of the upcoming mining frigate changes I give you:

[Burst, Battle Burst!]
Damage Control II

Warp Scrambler II
1MN Afterburner II
Stasis Webifier II

150mm Light AutoCannon II , Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
150mm Light AutoCannon II , Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S

Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I

-AAR-

The battle Burst is not a viable fleet tactic! :D  

I knew this ship wouldn't actually do anything worthwhile (duh...) but it was fun to fly around non-the-less.  I roamed around a bit throughout Syndicate, but due to my limited envelope of targets I wasn't able to find anything to kill.  At one point I did find myself caught in a bubble camp though, but I was able to successfully evade destruction, and to be completely honest, I consider that a win. :D  

After a bit of roaming, chasing an Itty III at one point, and not having any success, one of my corp-mates, Alistone Malkite, said he'd kill me with a Velator.  He succeeded.  3 Times.

It was a pretty simple engagement where in he sent his drones on me and proceed to kill me before I was able to kill him.  We tried two more times (because I had two more ships in my hanger) and the result was the same.  The last time I tried killing his drones before I went after him, but I was only able to get one drone to about 75% structure before I was killed. 

The slow speed of the Burst prevented me from closing the distance and inflicting the damage on his ship before the drones had done their work.  Combine that with the lack of a damage bonus (which the Velator recieves) and I was simply out-matched in a fight where he had the range advantage to start.  Had I been able to land at 0 on him (he clearly warped to 10 on each engagement) I might have been able to defeat him before the drones took me out.  

Just a bit of fun to see how I would do trying to fit out a mining frigate for combat.  It was a pretty worthless learning experience, even more so due to the upcoming changes, but in the end we both had a bit of fun on a slow night right before downtime.  Next time, I warp to 10.  >:)

CSM Summit Minutes - Part 2

Page 105 -The Launcher- 

"We may also be able to do something like let people buy more slots in an account."

Interesting, as I would assume this would end up costing CCP some subscription money in the long run.  If you have 12 Industry alts spread over 4 accounts, wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run for you to move them all to a single account?  

Page 125 -Logistics Frigate-

The topic quickly bounced over to the idea of having a Frigate logistics class.
Elise rather bluntly stated that Frigate logistics would “be bad no matter what”.
CCP Soundwave countered that he liked the idea and didn’t think a balanced solution was impossible to find.
CCP Greyscale chimed in saying that extreme range would be a good solution for a Frigate logistics class.
At this point Hans interjected and stated that Frigate logistics would finally give people a reason to use all the faction small remote reps they get. On this like, Two step suggested there should be faction large remote reps, to which CCP Ytterbium was apathetic.

I like this idea, there are so many T1 frigates in the game that this could provide a useful beginneres mark for that play-style.

Pages 121-134 -Balancing-
I literally loved every single thing in here.  Only time will tell if it all pans out, and as I'm no game designer or ship expert I'm probably not the one to ask about it, but it still all sounded good to me.

Page 129 -Sniping-

On the subject of sniping, Greyscale tossed out a high-level idea for a fix to sniping. He asked for CSM input on one such idea, an interdiction probe that would be launched a certain range before the bubble would deploy. In essence it would work as a drag-bubble to protect the sniping fleet, or at least give it ample time to react and reposition.

This is an interesting mechanic.  It would totally re-work combat strategies.  Though it's difficult to tell if this would work, I like the idea in its general sense. 

Page 133 -Off grid boosting-

CCP Ytterbium addressed the concern of off grid links and simply stated “off grid boosting should not exist”

Truth spoken here.

Pages 135-140 -Player to Player Contracts-
I liked most of what they said here, but one question kept coming to mind, which I think Elise summed up nicely:

Elise Randolph added that the backstabbing element is fun as well, and should be considered.

All these changes seem like they would limit the scamming opportunities in the game, and let's be clear here, there should always be ways to scam stupid people out of their isk.


Page 145 -Cocktease-

With only a few minutes left in the session, CCP Affinity brought up a very high-level thought for the CSM to ‘sniff test’. While no specifics can be provided the general reaction from the CSM was that the intent was good but it had to be done incrementally and carefully. CCP will confer further with the CSM should the idea make it past the stage of just being an idea.

This is just mean and unfair.

I'm torn about the usefulness of the long wait for these minutes.  In my opinion a ballance needs to be found.  It's wonderful to see who said what, but frankly I don't care about all the jokes being said, and most of the information was completely outdated.  It was a good read, but in the future they need to be able to pump most of this information out in a couple weeks at the latest, this took far too long.