EVE Online: first FW experience

My first FW night was enjoyable but expensive, I have 3 lossmails to show for my time and with assistance managed to get one one kill.

I made this Talwar fit. It can fit either a warp scrambler or warp disruptor.



My first loss was against a sentinel. He did a lot more damage as I expected and he neuted me totally dry in just a few seconds. My biggest mistake was in shooting at his drones.
I totally forgot a sentinel has a 60m3 drone bay, he didn't even have to recall his drones, he just released new ones. He was keeping range so I couldn't hit him even with javelin rockets.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20237769



My second loss was against a vengeance and wolf. Only after combat did I realize the cormorant on grid was not hostile but also in militia... a minute later that at least was fixed.
I am just glad I didn't shoot that cormorant. Together we killed the vengeance, the wolf was undamaged as it popped the cormorant and I was already in half armor but engaged him anyway.
I think we both entered structure or low armor when my launchers burned out so he had no problems finishing me off. GF were exchanged. Very close and I wonder who would have won had I not burned out my launchers.

The kill: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20237671
The loss: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20237670



The two minmatar destroyer wrecks are mine. Sponge was the vengeance.



My last loss was a bit silly, I should have warped off when I saw multiple ships appear on dscan but there was a friendly firetail on grid as well and I didn't want to leave him to die if he engaged them. So I just overheated rockets again and started shooting an ishkur.

Then I died and called it a night.
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=20238843



Looking at damage received I am not sure that EANM is of much use. Perhaps the BCS is better, it proved a significant dps bonus.

A talwar is slow so I didn't go for a kitey fit but always closed range and applied web + scram.

At least I am now motivated to go earn isk. I need replacement ships because learning when to engage and how will only generate more lossmails before I get better.
Should I go for max dps fits to burn down an enemy as fast as possible or should I go for something tanky so I have more time to learn the engagement? I'll have to think about this.

Final note: find out what is wrong with my teamspeak. Minmatar militia formed a fleet and they were able to hear me but I couldn't hear them. Probably a wrong output device selected is my guess but I couldn't locate the problem in the time available.

EVE Online: CCP vision.

During the New Player Training Sessions I saw some quotes by CCP Eterne.
I realize that these are just words from one CCP employee and not set in stone decisions.



Of course this isn't really new news but it was still nice to see confirmation that the idea is on the table. From an Eurogamer.net interview:

A sandbox can only be as deep as its creators allow though, and Eve remains a world tied heavily to CCP's fiction and rules - at least away from the low/null-security frontiers. In the second decade though, the game is stable enough to get more ambitious. "[The sandbox] should go as far as players want," says Lander." So, features like designing ships instead of just using pre-built ones? Having willing players replace the CONCORD NPC police force in high-security space? Destroying the four empires and shifting the universe entirely to a corporation and alliance driven one? "Oh, god yeah," Lander answered immediately - to the concepts, not confirming their imminent additions. "A lot of Eve's restrictions, they're because we had to get it out of the door."



I would hope Jove space starts out as a form of wormhole space that will allow cyno's and player-built stargates. Likewise it would start out without local chat and something like sovereignty upgrades to decide if there wil be a local chat or not.

Finally something for those angsty players that are afraid EVE will become safer and safer.

EVE Online: More RMT

Some guy just quit EVE, RMT-ed 125 PLEX for money and then bragged about it in his blog.

I am not going to link to his blog, I just unsubscribed from his feed and won't read another post of his. I am not willing to give him more advertising income and it would be best if EVE players did the same and turned his back on him.

I sincerely hope CCP confiscates all those PLEX from players that bought them. Unfortunately CCP can't really touch this guy anymore except through legal means and I don't hold high hopes for that. Though I would love for CCP to make an example of players like this that ruin the game for those of us that still play the game.

About the only solution I can think of to stop RMT though referral kickbacks is to remove GTC from the game and only allow players to buy and sell PLEX through CCP without any third pary interference. I have no idea though how this would impact the game. I cant see any drawbacks but I am pretty sure this is only because I haven't thought it all the way through.

No paper policy is going to stop bots or RMT. Perhaps it's time for CCP to kick it up a notch again and take some action.

The other thing that gets me going:
Amazon discounts.. The 5 dollars for 3 plex is an amazon mistake and the people that managed to buy 60 or 600 PLEX while it lasted just got lucky. But this isn't the first time amazon offers deals that are way below previous rates.

Without a credit card one of the few ways for me to get a PLEX to sell on the market is to pay € 35,- for two PLEX. Bought directly from CCP. I admit to some envy regarding players that were able to take advantage of the offer.

Metallica: Through the Never

Two days ago I went out and saw Metallica: Through the Never.



My expectations were not that high but I knew I would regret it if I hadn't seen the movie in IMAX 3D while I had the chance. So I talked my friend into seeing this movie and while he is no metal fan at all he was sitting on the edge of his seat.

The cinema sound system really creates an immersive experience. The concert and narrative combine to create a surreal movie.



As far as I can tell not a single person got up before the end credits finished.

I was drawn in and blown away. This is my movie of the year.

EVE Online: GTC referrals and RMT

Yay finally I joined in and made my own post about the SOMER RMT questions.

The real issue is that ingame parties can refer players to GTC sellers and get a share of the profits.

The real question is whether or not offering isk as a reward for using your referral is considered illegal RMT.

Instead of SOMER you could also Goons. They orchestrate ingame events and activities so they can generate articles on themittani.com. TMC.com refers people to a GTC seller. TMC generates dollars from this.
Perfectly legal so far.

Now TMC decides to offer 50m isk bonus for any GTC bought through their website to entice even more players to click on their GTC referral link.
Suddenly RMT.

But there is Good RMT and there is Bad RMT.
-Bad RMT: you pay 20 dollars and get 1 billion isk.
-Good RMT: you pay 20 dollars to buy a GTC and get 50m bonus.

Of those 20 Good RMT dollars:
-CCP gets 15 dollar (same as if someone had paid to extend their account one week.)
-GTC reseller gets 3 dollar.
-TMC gets 1 dollar.

With Bad RMT the isk seller gets 20 dollars per billion isk and CCP sees none.
With Good RMT the isk seller gets 20 dollars per billion isk and CCP gets 300 dollars.

Imagine CCP allows this and every big alliance and RMT traders jumps in.
Soon referrers will have to offer 200m isk bonus per GTC to get players to click their link instead of going to a competitor. With Good RMT the isk seller then gets 5 dollars per billion isk and CCP still gets their 300 dollars for selling 20 GTC to a third party reseller.

Who loses if this is allowed?

The limit on how much isk you can convert to dollars is just on how much people you can get to click the referral links. But let's say people are lining up to buy GTC through your referral and the limit is only in how fast you can pull in isk to hand out as bonus.

To earn isk you have to play the game. To play the game you need account time. CCP earns 15 dollars if you pay for that account time (if you plex someone else already paid for your account time).

CCP is not the loser here, someone pays for that GTC.
The GTC seller is not the loser here, he sold a GTC
The referrer is not the loser here, he just plexed his account.
The player that wants isk is not the loser here. He is not forced to buy a GTC.

Of course botting to earn inhuman amounts of isk would break this.
That is why botting is illegal and should be a high priority for CCP to combat.

What if the CFC turns into a human botting alliance focusing on pure PVE?
Then there are a lot of PVE carebears making themselves a big target for any PVP-ers.

What if you can't fight the CFC because they are too big?
Well obviously goons have won at EVE. Now HTFU and go fight goons, join goons or get the fuck out of this game you pathetic whiner.

Personally I have no idea yet what I will do, but quitting EVE is not an option under consideration.

EVE Online: Nosy Gamer slippery slope SOMER poll

The nosy gamer put up a poll asking players how they feel about SOMER and the accusations of RMT. http://nosygamer.blogspot.nl/2013/10/first-poll-is-somerblink-conducting-rmt.html

Yes, and SOMER should be banned with all assets confiscated.

Yes, SOMER should be banned, but CCP should try to restore ISK to players.

Yes, but since CCP tacitly approved, SOMER should be allowed to stay in business if he follows the rules in the future.

Yes, but so what?
When I started this post there was just a poll with answers to choose from and no separate post so I answered the question: 'Is SOMER involved in RMT and what should CCP do about it.'

Feel free to imagine other questions that would fit this answer template.
Imagine SOMER hadn't received Ishukone Scorpions but some other unique ship and sold them for isk.

Is it wrong for SOMER to sell customized spaceship skins feating pink unicorns?

A blessing of ..

Have you ever heard the expression, "a gaggle of geese?" These names for groups of animals are pretty peculiar, too.

1. A shrewdness of apes	12. An exaltation of larks
2. A battery of barracudas	13. A troop of monkeys
3. A kaleidoscope of butterflies	14. A parliament of owls
4. A quiver of cobras	15. An ostentation of peacocks
5. A murder of crows	16. A rookery of penguins
6. A convocation of eagles	17. A prickle of porcupines
7. A charm of finches	18. An unkindness of ravens
8. A skulk of foxes	19. A shiver of sharks
9. A troubling of goldfish	20. A pod of whales
10. A smack of jellyfish	21. A descent of woodpeckers
11. A mob of kangaroos	22. A zeal of zebras

Can you guess what webcomic led to this post?

.. unicorns.

EVE Online: New Player Training Sessions

Earlier today was the first of the New Player Training Sessions.
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/new-player-training-sessions/

New players can participate by joining the "New Player Training Sessions" channel in game at the listed times. We will also be advertising the sessions in the rookie corporations and Rookie Help Chat channel during the event times.

Track: Player vs Player Combat
October 15, 17:00 UTC – Modules
October 17, 17:00 UTC – Fitting Your Ship
October 22, 17:00 UTC – Earning ISK
October 24, 17:00 UTC – The Overview and UI
October 29, 17:00 UTC – Piloting Your Ship
October 31, 17:00 UTC – Skills
November 5, 17:00 UTC – Crimewatch (Featuring live demonstrations)
November 7, 17:00 UTC – Combat Basics
November 12, 17:00 UTC – Teamwork
November 16, 17:00 UTC – PVP Fleet
November 18, 17:00 UTC – Progression: What’s Next?

Minutes before the first session started the channel had 134 people in it, this jumped to over 300 when the first session started, about 450 fifteen minutes in and almost 500 by the time CCP Eterne finished talking.



Full seminar text will be posted on the EVElopedia. This is a good thing as text was pushed off the screen after the seminar ended and chat was opened up for questions.

One note: https://wiki.eveonline.com/wikiEN/images/8/87/Propulsion.png
Isn't that supposed to be 100 km?

Overal I found it an informative session, even if there was some information overload at times.
Finally got to see CCP devs in the game as well.

Link of the day

Old Spice commercial featuring the awesome Bruce Campbell.

Other Old Spice commercials. I thought they were pretty hilarious.

EVE Online: Wormhole PI update

It has been almost a month since the move to a C1 wormhole to do PI and it has proven lucrative enough that two characters are now training CCU rank V.

Total Sales	105.230.195,37
Total Sales	115.483.947,24
Total Export Tax	-10.496.000,00
Total Export Tax	-9.084.300,00
Profit	201.133.842,61
Open sell orders	90.000.000

These are numbers from two characters. I run a two day cycle but installations still fall idle every now and then.

Overall my wallet balance dropped because I've been buying some ships. At minimum I put a scanning frigate and epithal in all main trade hubs. I just pick the nearest hub to sell my items and switch ships if necesarry.

EVE Online: First tears collected

The first thing I saw on overview was a Vherokior Probe loitering on the wormhole.

I had just jumped my pve Oracle from high sec to a class 1 wormhole. I decloak, lock up the target and shoot the ship first and the pod second as it doesn't warp off. Seconds later a retriever leaves warp so gets shot as well, unfortunately the pod is able to warp off.

http://zkillboard.com/detail/33801048/
After killing the ship I felt a bit sorry for killing what was probably an afk noob on a daytrip.



http://zkillboard.com/detail/33801053/
After killing the pod I felt annoyed that this guy went afk in a dangerous spot and would probably end up blaming me.



http://zkillboard.com/detail/33801063/
After killing the retriever I felt like it was my birthday party and I wished that second pod would stay and let me crack it open to see what was inside.



Lessons learned:

• Refit that pve oracle. Replace those cap rechargers with sensor boosters. Lack of cpu (36 available for two mid slots) prevents me from fitting anything really useful in the mids but sensors boosters are
• Watch dscan, next time it might not be a retriever that leaves warp.

Lesson's taught:

• Don't go afk uncloaked on wormholes.
• Warp to zero, that retriever landed 10 km away.

Reaction from the victim:
Mail 1: ты сука пролетела через нашу систему, и еще насрала там
Google translate: you bitch flew through our system and there is still shit

Mail 2: ты мразь у меня инет глюкнул, тебя бы там разодрали на твоем оракле
Google translate: you scum I Inet glyuknul, you would be there on your tore Orakle

Local chat:
[13:51:53] pirdutcho > че мрази спрятались
Google translate: human scum hiding
[13:52:22] pirdutcho > бледво
Google translate: bledvo

And after that I decided to move on to my destination system, apparently some people are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.

I do not believe Gevlon Goblin would have approved of this mining fit.

EVE Online: Four years

Time flies when you are having fun. It has been over four years since I started playing Eve at the urge of one of my best friends. Unfortunately he didn't stick around.

At the start I had only one account, after a few months I realized the only way to 'level up' a second character was if I had a second account. The other purpose was to have a scout when moving around in slow but expensive ships like a drake or raven.



Raziel, birth date 12-9-2009, 64m SP
My main prefers to fly caldari hulls. Skill training has been all over the place and next twelve months will be used to raise existing skills to rank 4 to fill gaps in support skills.
Most flown ship: HAM tengu, it gets boring.



Uriel, birth date 4-10-2009, 46m SP
Uriel prefers amarr hulls. Main purpose is as an industrial character doing PI and manufacturing. Secondary goal is firing (mining) lasers. Long term training goal at creation was to get into a dreadnaught. The next year will be spent getting into and orca, archon and amarr tech2 hulls while fleshing out industry skills where needed.
Favorite ship: anything with lasers. Ungroup for better effect.



Duriel, birth date 24-1-2010, 62m SP
Duriel prefers minmatar hulls. Main purpose is as pvp character, secondary as scout and support. Long term training goal is to fly all subcapital hulls. Next twelve months will be mostly support skills because those are subpar
Favorite ship: stealth bombers. Theory only.



Gabrielle, birth date 9-8-2010, 47m SP
Gabrielle prefers gallente hulls. Main purpose is industrial support for Uriel. Long term training goal at creation was to get into a carrier. The next year will be spent getting into a carrier hull and improving drone skills.
Biggest disappointment: blaster proteus. Navy megathron does it better.



Finally I have two minor alts.

Minor alt 1 (6m SP): 3-4-2011, freighter pilot.
Minor alt 2: (8m SP) 3-4-2011, meant to be a pirate or suicide ganker or something else not carebeary. Currently engaged in carebear activities.

Assets
A while ago I valued my own assets at about 15 billion isk, this was excluding any production materials and modules I had lying around.

This week I downloaded jEveAssets and it gave my total asset value as 19.503.030.987,34 isk
This took me four years to accumulate. Gevlon Goblin had 20 billion isk in two months.

Speaking of Gevlon. I saw his two ganking alts pass through my high sec mining system twice today reminding me I might want to look at changing my mining fit. A retriever with MAPC and MSE for shield tank. I could replace the MSE with an invulnerability field. This would remove the need for the MAPC freeing up a low slot for a second mining laser upgrade.

SOMER T20

Post inspired by http://funkybacon.blogspot.nl/2013/10/somerblink-t20-13.html

In short, CCP gave SOMER employees rare Ishukone Watch Scorpions.
http://themittani.com/news/ccp-secretly-gifted-somer-blink-ishukone-scorpions

Some people are raising hell and equating this to the T20 scandal, others think it is overblown and SOMER just received some gifts comparable to othere freebies CCP has handed out to community sites in the past.

SOMER blink is not a community site.
SOMER blink is a gambling site.

And that is why I believe SOMER should be treated differently from real community sites.
Other community sites generate advertising income or receive gifts from CCP as well but those sites are still presented with their service as primary goal. SOMER does not exist to sponsor events, that is just advertising to promote their primary service, gambling.

Gambling is not a community service.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://crossingzebras.com/2013/10/06/conflict-of-interest/
First reply: Colluding in a secret process makes it appear seedy and underhanded. If it is a reward why not celebrate it in a public way to encourage other people to contribute to the community?

http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2013/10/hobbit-birthday.html
http://jestertrek.blogspot.nl/2013/10/conflict-diamond.html

I won't quit EVE over this, I won't threaten to quit EVE over this. At best I will keep it in mind the next time CCP slips up again. I think this is how bittervets get born?

EVE Online: Standings repaired

A few days ago I finished Penumbra, the final of the four epic mission arcs.

One of my long term goals is to have is high standings with all four empire factions. The time I started the standing repair plan my gallente standing was about to hit -5.

These standings were with the connections skill at rank 3
Caldari State   8,66
Amarr Empire   5,6
Gallente Federation   -4,71
Minmatar Republic   -2,96

I started by completing all tutorial missions and did datacenter missions by turning in dog tags and running the courier mission chain. Of course I did storylines in between as well though I should probably avoid doing those in the future.

Faction standings before I started the 4 epic arcs with connections 4
Caldari State  4.64
Gallente Federation 3.78
Amarr Empire  3.72
Minmatar Republic 3.54

Faction standings after finishing the 4 epic arcs, the SoE arc (Minmatar variation) and training connections 5.
Caldari State 5.68
Minmatar Republic 4.91
Gallente Federation 4.66
Amarr Empire 4.52

Training connection skill rank 5 my caldari standing went from 5.5 to 5.68.

The Blood-Stained Stars was done in a nighthawk, previously a hawk was used. Next time I'll try a crow. That should speed things up nicely 3 months from now. Combats are mostly against noob frigates and most time is spent warping around anyway.

Totally off topic, ships will travel faster as a result of the warp changes. This would allow fleets to move around faster if titan jump bridges are ever nerfed in a far away future.

Old Man's War

This is not a story about Eve Online and pvp in Old Man Star.

This is about two secondhand books I bought this afternoon.
Last and First Man by Olaf Stapledon
Old Man's War by John Scalzi

I am about 100 pages into Old Man's War by now and hooked. It was mentioned as reminiscent of Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman's Forever War and while I don't have Starship Troopers I do have 6 other Heinlein books and both Haldeman's Forever War and Forever Peace.
So far OMW is on track to be just as entertaining and engaging.

John Scalzi apparantly was a creative consultant for Stargate Universe. I own season 1 on DVD and seen the first six episodes. Stargate and Atlantis were more enjoyable more but perhaps the characters will grow a bit more likable over time.

Last and First Man has been named as an influential book by a lot by other writers so looking forward to that as well.

Other books I have recently read are:
Fate of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner
The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks
The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart & Jack Cohen
Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore
and Saga of the Pliocene Exile, a trilogy by Julian May

Back to OMW.

EVE Online: Customs Code Expertise

CCP SoniClover came with news about high sec player owned customs offices. The full article can be read at http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/player-owned-customs-offices-in-hi-sec/

Of course the real news is the introduction of an awesome new skill!

Customs Code Expertise
This will reduce the NPC portion of the tax rate, by 10% per level (so at level 5 the NPC export tax rate will be 5% rather than 10%). Again, this skill only affects the NPC portion of the tax, not the player owner tax.



Reducing tax by 40 or 50 percent sounds pretty decent even if taxes are only about 10% of the sale price. Giving us this skill at the same time when any NPC customs office can be destroyed and replaced by a player owned one...

Ripard Teg mentioned CCP devs trolling players?

EDIT:

The NPC tax will continue for hi sec POCOs (as we want low sec POCOs to still be competitive). The tax rate stays the same, at 10% for export and 5% for import. This is then in addition to whatever tax the player owner sets.

Perhaps I should have read this part a few times more. The good news is that reading http://mabricksmumblings.blogspot.nl/2013/10/we-need-better-than-double-taxes-and-no.html pointed out this mistake to me before someone had to do it in comments.
The bad news is that it removes the point of my article since Customs Code Expertise is apparantly a real skill and not some dev trolling.

No regrets about moving my PI operation to a C1 wormhole.

EVE Online: Certificate changes

CCP Ytterbium posted a dev blog yesterday with details about the certificate system revamp.
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/license-to-kill-certificate-overhaul/

Just my feedback here, anyone can read the full dev blog for themselves, no need to rephrase and repost the entire blog.

Certificates can no longer be set as public.
I liked setting non-pvp certificates public. It gives people a little idea of what my character focus is and might lower the barrier to approach me or ask questions.
http://eveboard.com/pilot/raziel_Walker/certificates

Removal of redundant starter profession certificates.
They are redundant because they cannot be made public anymore. Was I the only player that ever looked at them? Did roleplayers have any use for them?

Automatic certificate claming.
Only now do I realize I should have trained basic certificates, claimed them and set them public. Then train the improved/elite certificate and do not claim it. That way people might think my character is an untrained alt and underestimate some skills despite his character age.

Ship masteries
Shield reinforcement and tackling certificates for a Megathron?
I understand maximizing anything that might be relevant for rank V mastery but it still looks a bit silly.

Corporation created certificates
Are these possible or will this be possible with a future release?
This is the real new news that will get people excited about this dev blog.

You want to fly the fleet doctrine fit?
Match this certificate to be eligible for ship reimbursement.