In a word – Brilliant!

It has been tremendous fun and a real education. I have met some wonderful people from all over the globe and made a few friends who I’ll never forget.

Day one was all a bit manic with 3000 odd people milling around and trying to find their bearings in the Convention Centre. Finding a seat was nigh impossible and I took one look at the Eve Store and quickly turned around – it was a throbbing mass of bodies scrambling to grab the T-shirts, Hoodies and other offerings available. I was intent in getting a hoodie for myself but it had to wait until a quieter time.

Kicked off with the Opening Ceremonies in the ‘Tranquility’ Hall which set the mood and got everyone hyped up and buzzin’.

Rushed round to Roundtable 3 for the Fansites RT.  Was interesting and good to see some of the ‘names’ from the WWW. Rock Weiller – Crazy Kinux – Dotlan – amongst others. Rock Weiller can yap for Scotland. The Fansite Roundtable which had some interesting news that CCP revealed on a change of direction regarding monetyzing websites and applications. This may have an unintended impact if develops all start charging real money  for their work. A fair proposition but I wonder if the Eve community will be prepared to cough up real dosh for an app that perhaps saves them a bit of time but really only replaces an ingame function that may be more convoluted and intrusive of the UI. I suppose the market will decide and the best apps available may be worthy of a RL investment with the remainder still available as open source code.

Day two began early with the initial Dev Track roundtable. Good stuff if a bit technical and especialy when using a tiny font on a projector to highlight code. Was a good education though and certainly brought some ideas to mind. I followed the Dev Track events all day and only divetted to take in the Keynote speech which was a highlight of the day.

Finished off the day with the Chess Boxing event which was thoroughly entertaining. The two contenders were certainly not pulling any punches and gave it 100%. They are both to be commended for their commitment to the event and for making it such an entertaining spectacle.

Day three finished off with the rest of the Dev Track events all of which have been very valuable in have given me some real food for thought. The highlight of the day was the CCP Presents late in the afternnon where upcoming changes  were announced and a review of the last year’s progress. All very good stuff.

Then fianlly the Party at the Top of the World where I finally relaxed my strict alcohol forbearance (?) and let myself go a bit. Had a real skinful and emptied my hipflask of the good ol Bells whisky. I suffered for it the next day but it sure was fun at the time.

All told I had a fascinating time here in Iceland and I will definitely be back for the next Fanfest. Better prepared and ready to get involved and part from day one…

Almost immediately I identified the song and artist and I found a lyric sheet which allowed me to happily sing the song all afternoon, much to the annoyance of my colleagues. My singing is only a small step up from the even more repetetive humming of the same few bars over and over… annoying my colleagues is a duty I try to fulfill every day and not without a generous measure of success I might add – and I’m sure my colleagues will be only to happy to concur

The Song? oh yeah nearly forgot

It is El Paso by Marti Robbins – an old favourite of mine and many millions more I’m sure. Click here for a YouTube video of Marti Robbins in concert – its kinda cheesy but you get to hear the tune..

Its a bit out of favour nowadays along with the whole Country and Western genre in general – unless there’s a Rap scene in C&W going on that I haven’t heard about..

Reading the lyrics gave me an idea that could work in an EVE environment so I played around and edited the lyrics until I had something that fitted the bill whilst still retaining the general tempo of the original..

The result?

Read for yourself at Rosa’s Casino and try singing along for a bit of fun

All the lights went off, my game client and my buddies game client reset, we’re both looking at the login screen and we’re both shouting our lungs out over Vent  ’son of a bitch – no – don’t drop – you feckers!!!!’.

We knew it was coming – for about a minute beforehand there were notices flashing up on screen informing us the Star Gates were closed in XXXXX system due to excess traffic – hundreds of them. Its a dead giveaway when I see this that the servers are gonna drop any second. I’ve never yet seen it recover once these notices start flashing up on screen so it must be part of a manual shutdown process rather than just someone pulling the plug.

Either way, if it was CCP who initiated the shutdown or it was a system fault that caused it, I was not a happy camper I can tell you.

We had successfully ‘massacred’ all but two of the Guristas and we were seconds away fom picking up the mission objective (30 units of Confiscated Viral Infection) and looking forward to a nice haul of salvage.

Twenty minutes later we connected up again and thankfully our drones were still at the location so we didn’t lose everything!

However, this particular mission needs the Confiscated Viral Infection and as the target ships (plus all the salvage) had now disappeared I coudn’t complete the mission. It says ‘mission complete’ when I talk to the agent but of course I didn’t get the drop so I can’t complete. Damn!

I looked in the market thinking I could buy the drop and there it is in Tash-Murkon and two or three other locations – at 59,000 ISK p unit or roughly 1.5 Million ISK for 30 units. As the timer has dropped out on the mission I stand to collect 400,000 ISK. We did pick up the bounties but making up 1.1 Million is a big ask.

As we also lost the salvage its a big loss to make up by buying in the drop needed to enable me to complete the mission.

I am waiting for the downtime tomorrow to see if the mission resets and lets me go after those crazy Guristas again…

I think this is now the third time since January that this has happened to me and always at a most inconvenient time. It wouldn’t be so bad if I was in station making a trade or something similar, but having spent the best part of an hour in grinding a mission only to see it all go down the tubes in a few seconds is infuriating.

I think I would prefer CCP to concentrate on getting their servers stable and robust rather than spending so much time on pushing out bi-annual updates. How about an annual update that works ‘out of the box’ and spend the rest of the year ensuring game play is not interrupted at frequent intervals.

Gripe over for today ..

Here is my experience of running this mission

Objective
Destroy the Blood Raider Cathedral and the hostile vessels guarding it.

Ships and Fitout:

I ran this with a pal.

My ship: Harbinger

2 x Armor EM Hardener II
2 x Armor Thermic Hardener II
6 x Focused Medium Beam Laser II – Loaded with Multi-frequency M
3 x Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I Rig
2 x Medium Armor Repairer II
3 x Cap Recharger II
1 x 10MN Afterburner I

Drones: 4 x Warrior 1

Pals Ship: Myrmidon

Fitout to follow

Comments:

Try not to do what I did and forget to blow up the Cathedral. Went back to station and ‘completed mission’ only to be told ‘one or more of the mission objectives has not been completed…. Doh! Had to undock and go way back the mission location – through two warp gates – blow up the Cathedral – back to station and eventually complete the mission…

We concentrated on the sentry guns and missile batteries first. I had to warp out once to recharge but the EM and Thermic Hardeners did their job well and I was pretty much stable most of the time. Only had trouble when the Corpus Monsignor/Harbinger NOS’ed me. My pal in his Myrmidon was ok all the way through but he warped along with me so as not to be left fighting alone.

All in all I would say this a medium difficulty Level 4 mission and so long as I had the backup, I would repeat this one until the cows came home…

Rewards
ISK: 549000 + 481000 in bonus if completed in 3 hours and 32 minutes

I Completed this in 1 hour 45 minutes

LP:   868

Loot:
I don’t know what they were up to in that Cathedral but destroying it gave up 2 Slavers, 21 Slaves and 4 Slaver Hounds plus some Electronics, Enriched Uranium and Frozen Food

The general salvage loot was quite good and provided a whole bunch of  ‘Salvaged Materials’, ‘Armour Plating’ , various ‘Cap Boosters’, and ‘Laser Weapons’. Well worth doing and netted me an additional couple of million ISK.  Also bounty prizes of 6 million ISK.

Mining: None

Details (provided by EVE-Survival)

Faction: Blood Raiders
Mission Type: Deadspace
Damage Dealt: EM/Therm
Web/Scramble: None
Extras: Tracking Disruptor, NOS (Corpus Harbinger – 25km range)
Recommended damage dealing: EM (best), Therm (secondary)

Pocket 1

No aggro at warp-in.

Proximity aggro range for the Blood Cruise Missile Batteries is about 30km.
The warp gate is locked until all hostile ships have been eliminated.

Single Group: (30-35km)

2x Blood Cruise Missile Battery
3x Frigates (Corpii Collector/Seeker) Tracking Disruptor
9x Destroyers (Corpior Cleric/Devoter/Friar/Templar)
4x Battlecruisers (Corpatis Bishop/Shade/Fanatic Seer)
2x Battleships (Corpus Monsignor/Harbinger) NOS

Tip

• Eliminate the battlecruisers, destroyers and cruise missile batteries first, to reduce incoming DPS.

Pocket 2

At warp-in, you will get proximity aggroed from the sentry guns and missile batteries that sits within 30km range.
No NPC ships will aggro UNTIL you start your attack.

Single Group: (20-35km)

6x Blood Raider Sentry Gun
6x Blood Raider Heavy Missile Battery
3x Frigates (Corpii Engraver/Reaver)
6x Destroyers (Corpior Devoter/Cleric/Friar)
9x Battlecruisers (Corpatis Bishop/Seer/Shade)
2x Battleships (Corpus Patriarch/Pope)

Tip

• The sentry guns/missile batteries, each have an aggro & shooting range of 30km. Before starting your attack, move away > 30km to remove them as a threat.
• Eliminate the battlecruisers and destroyers first, to reduce incoming DPS.
• Mission is flagged completed once you have destroyed the Blood Raiders Cathedral and eliminated all defending 2x battleships and 6x destroyers.

Blitz

• None.

For more details on this mission please visit EVE-Survival

It seems there are two main schools of thought on the subject – its cheating or its an allowable advantage.

I can see the point of the cheating claim but I feel they are missing the point as nothing that can be done by a player using two accounts is better than two players colluding together. In fact its probably harder for a single player to control two accounts and certainly in a combat situation this would be the case.

I think my view is settled in the allowable advantage camp and I’m going to give it a try.

I see many, many players posting in the forums that they use more than one account and I don’t think dual boxing is a small minority of players. If I only benefit from the help in mining and salvaging I think it will be worth it. Plus I’ve got alts that haven’t really been trained as I would like and I wish I had taken the time to research training skills as soon as I started playing Eve.

This could be a way to train up a character for the additional functions I’m currently missing out on.

Now I just need to justify the additional expense..

Following on from the niggle in my head about comedy in Eve I thought I’d post in the forums and see what kind of response I received.

I set a new thread in the General Discussions forum and asking if there were any dedicated comedy channels in Eve or other resources?

I have a couple of responses so far and one was from Chribba who jokingly suggested we should have an award – a Comedian of the Year Award.

Seems like a good scheme…

…watch this space

UPDATE: 19-02-2010

This thread is throwing up some very funny replies – check it out

In response Estel Arador wanted to know why using our service was of benefit to advertisers when there were other links in the Google results that were equally of relevance to the advertiser – what made our service any better than those other links.

Here is the reply:

This sticky is not the place for a protracted discussion and if you wish to continue this elsewhere please post another thread.

However, to answer your questions (again) – as I said the table was an indication the website is being spidered succesfully. I also indicated our advertisers will be provided with details of website hits to their advert etc.

Regarding how our site can help when other results are shown on Google searches. You are quite correct that Google shows other results but not necessarily links that are of any use to the advertisers.

For example – take the Chribba link.

Searching on Google for Chribba’s 3rd party service brings up these results:

1 – Eve Online Wiki

A very nice wiki article about Chribba – no link to Chribba’s advert or thread

2 – Eve Search

Page 13 of 18 thread posts – Dated 6 June 2009 and another click to go to page one and see what Chribba was actually advertising

3 – Eve Search

Result 1-20 of 43 for by author Nori traps all about Recruiting 0.0 PVP players – no link to Chribba’s advert or thread

4 – Massively.Com

EVE Online Community Spotlight: a Q&A with Chribba – a real nice profile of Chribba – no immediate link to Chribba’s advert or thread

5 – Solar Sentinel Classified Ad’s

Chribba’s advert and a direct link to his forum thread – Dated 14 Jan 2010

I use this as an example but I dare say all the results for any advert will be similar. Check it for yourself and tell me which link you would click on if you were looking for an advertised service.

Plus if you had used Solar Sentinel Classified Ad’s to find a service before you know you are going to get the information you want – not something totally irrelevant like o.o PVP recruiting…

You seem to be interested so why not sign up and test it for yourself? The worst that can happen is you don’t get any hits on our site. The best and more probable result is you get an increase in business.

It is FREE and you have nothing to lose – and every chance it will help you.

Also remember that not everyone is like you and Chribba with long and well established services.

There are those who are just starting out and as you see from many of the messages in this sticky – they can’t even get listed as an available service. This is one of the reasons the classifieds were put on our site – because we along with a multitude of others have had our requests to be listed in this sticky completely ignored.

If you wish to ask any further questions then I suggest you post in another thread or speak to me in game.

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I think those results speak for themselve don’t you?

There doesn’t seem to be much of it around in Eve apart from the usual banter that occurs in the chat channels or local and most of that deteriorates into smack talk and abuse.

It struck me there could be a demand for a dedicated Comedy Channel in Eve but the medium isn’t quite right for it. Being mainly text based and with a restriction on the character count, the chat rooms lend themselves to short phrases and one-liners. It would be hard to keep everyone off their keyboards until a joke of any length had been posted.

There are possibiliies though and even if only on a small scale. The player channels that you create have a voice function built in and it is fully integrated so there are no downloads or anything to worry over. When in a player created channel simply right click on the channel tab and select ‘join audio’ and similarly to leave you would select ‘leave audio’. The trouble is there is a limitation of 200 players in the channel and whilst this is quite a small audience it would be sufficient to ‘test the water’ and confirm if there was sufficient demand for something bigger – like a slot on Eve Radio perhaps?

I joined the Eve Radio channel to ask them the question and the DJ online at the time informed me they do occasional comedy sessions but he didn’t expand on this. So the result as I far as I know is that Eve Radio don’t have a specific Comedy slot in their schedule.

I can see a potential here for a text based player channel and a once a day/week/fortnight? slot on Eve Radio for an audio ‘performance’

The trouble with a performance on Eve Radio might be the lack of audience feedback – there would be no audience laughter or jeerings or whatever so the performance would appear quite ‘flat’ and it would be against my principles to listen to something that made use of canned laughter/audience reactions. So whilst the player channel only affords 200 players at least they can all speak/laugh/shout back – then again that could result in mayhem…

It’s perhaps just a fanciful thought but there is something in there that niggles me.

‘Advertisement’

Comedians/Performers required for late night radio show

The purpose of this blog is to track my progress in Eve, the experiences I have had within the game and in the making of this website. I hope you won’t mind my diversions as we progress and eventually you will find some Smatterings Of Sense amongst it all.

There have been good and bad (mostly good) experiences and all have served the purpose of helping educate me in the ways of Eve. I would venture that everything so far experienced has been of benefit, even when sometimes it wasn’t very pleasant…

This website is new – very new. It is so new the ink hasn’t dried so watch where you are putting you fingers as you leaf through the various pages.Try not to leave any smudges.

It has been a couple of months in the building and has only recently gone ‘live’ to the general public. The reception has been positive from those who have visited and I am encouraged by the supportive comments received. So far so good!

One thing that has pleased me is the tone of the comments received has been predominantly constructive and aimed at helping us build a site that will provide a value to the Eve Community.

————————————————-

In the last week I have been approached ingame by several individuals who have spent a great deal of time with me and educated me in some elements of Eve that I had not previously considered. Not the basic game mechanics or how to trade kind of info but some of the factors that make Eve the wonderful experience it can be. It has been an eye opener and has definitely refocused my thoughts on the kind of direction that this website may take and my objectives in the game itself.

It has been invaluable and my thanks go out to all of them – you know who you are….

One comment in particular and the discussion that followed has struck a chord within me:-

‘Eve in itself is not where the fun lies – it is the tools that Eve provides, allowing you to make your own fun, that gives the game its depth and makes it so appealing.‘

These ‘tools’ are not just the modules, weapons and ships you strive for in trying to make you better at PVP or the like. These ‘tools’ can be found throughout the game and in a variety of guises. Some of them are obvious – like using peoples innate greed to concoct a scam. The tool is their greed and your skill is using that greed, leveraging that ‘tool’, to convince them you have a ‘…sure fire winner of a scheme, it’ll make us Billionaires….honest’

Other tools may not be so easy to recognise and some players may never, ever realise there are ‘tools’ to be used in an ongoing backdrop to Eve. A ‘behind the scenes’ adventure going on all the time, in every system, in every station. I’ve been given a ‘peek’ at this in recent days and discovered that many players are using tools of a totally different nature and having a great deal of fun in the process. I’m only beginning to realise that Eve allows you to open the door to a new adventure every day.

I am at the start of my journey and it means adopting a new kind of mindset about Eve…you don’t have to follow but there might be some fun along the way..