We are at the last weekend before taxes are due in the US… I am not sure why we got a reprieve until Monday, but I won’t argue… and I just got a “so sorry, but not really” message from one firm informing me that they won’t be sending me that last tax document I am waiting on for at least three weeks. So I will be learning about filing for an extension this weekend. Go me!
Meanwhile, I am back to things on my list that I want to mention but couldn’t quite get a whole post together for.
The Goblin Leaves New Eden
I knew when Gevlon left WoW and came to New Eden that sparks would fly. I have said on multiple occasions that Gevlon and EVE Online seemed like a perfect match. And, I must say, I was not disappointed. Over the years he has managed to stir shit up and annoy people on a regular basis, which speaks to a certain level of effectiveness in his mission.
However, his “ISK = power” theory having been proven on the large scale by I Want ISK in the Casino War and the shift in ISK earning potential to the major military powers coming with the Citadel expansion… the rich get richer… has led him to liquidate his assets and leave the game.
I will miss his focus on New Eden. Of course, that is probably something a social would say, so it will likely just annoy him. Where will the Goblin land next?
Brave Bastion
CCP announced the return of the Alliance Panel to EVE Fanfest 2016, because nothing ever goes awry there. The lineup looks like an odd mix. Certainly one of these things is not like the other.
Fanfest 2016 Alliance Panel
There is only one alliance on the panel, Scary Wormhole People [WHBOO], that isn’t directly involved in the current Moneybadgers vs. Imperium war. They seem to be shooting everybody about equally. In addition, WHBOO is an alliance with only a single corp, so I think they might be pushing a definitional line somewhere with this.
Meanwhile, I suspect that, in being the only Imperium alliance amongst four foes, things will be rough for The Bastion [BASTN] on the panel. Given the strong “if you are still in The Imperium then you are a horrible person” vibe running through the war’s narrative, I am not sure I would want to show up at EVE Fanfest this year, much less stand up and speak.
Leaks Bite Mittens in the… Press
There is an article up over at the International Business Times which, among other things, calls EVE Online “The Most Boring Video Game In The World.” Not a great article, though I did get a chuckle when Richard “Lord British” Garriott was identified in a picture simply as “another “Eve Online” player.”
I have to think that the whole article was at best a mixed win for CCP’s marketing group.
Focus on The Mittani makes up a good chunk of the post, which includes this caveat about what he says,
But it is almost impossible to take what Gianturco says at face value. An arch manipulator, he is keen to promote his side’s view of the current conflict, and in leaked chat logs shown to IBT after an interview with him, Gianturco boasts that the media (and IBT in particular) are “eager to print whatever I’ll tell them.”
And so it goes for the self-described Vladimir Putin of New Eden. I am pretty sure GARPA is even now working on an unloggable chat tool. The hellwar demands it!
Still Smarting
Speaking of hellwars, the persistence and effort Derek Smart has put into his personal war against Star Citizen continues as epic post number 11, Star Citizen – Extinction Level Event, hit his blog this past week. The legal threats seem to have subsided from his posts, as have the almost constant references to his own game, Line of Defense (which itself is set to leave Steam). Instead he is focused on savaging Star Citizen business plans, schedules, promises, customer relations, and the current level of quality… and memes, his post has lots of memes in it.
Diablo III Season 5 Ends Today
Diablo III Season 5 ends today.
Hrmm, that seems a bit redundant.
I wanted to note the date, but I do not really have much else to say other than I enjoyed Season 5, right up until the moment I finished the set dungeon and got the last of the base achievements…
Mission Accomplished
…and then I totally stopped playing Diablo III again.
Still, I will probably log in again once the season closes to see how my crusader integrates back into my regular cast of characters. He certainly brings a lot of gold and recipes to the mix. We shall see if I come back for Season 6, which starts on April 29th.
Anyway, that is what I had on the list
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Hay Wilhelm, slowly learning to fly…and doing the tutorials. Been also reading about hauling and mining…Looking at the ORCA which can do both. Question for yea, not sure if you know if this is a daft idea or not. The ORCA has a fleet Hold which can hold up to 400k in ship mass…up to two Hulks for example. If I was to get an ORCA and max out it out for cargo and do solo hauling/mining would it be crazy to stick a Mining Frigate in there so that I could flight out to the asteroid belts and and fill’er holds up. Is it possible? What do you think?
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@Chaosrook – It has been a while since I did the mining thing. The Orca was kind of a new ship when I was still doing that. Let’s see…
I wouldn’t max out cargo on the Orca and haul anything of great value, somebody will suicide gank it and take your stuff when you haul through one of the 0.5 choke point systems… Niarja for example.
Also, if I am reading this correctly, you are asking if you can eject from your Orca, get in a mining frigate, mine away to fill up the Orca, then dock back up, take over the Orca again, and haul to market. Is that right? Because I couldn’t recommend that either, as somebody could just jump in the Orca while you were mining and steal it. To do that you want to have two accounts, and I am not sure you are ready for two accounts yet.
What I did, back in the day when I started off mining, was get the hell away from Jita, find some nice quiet system with a station, and mine the most valuable ore I could, haul it back to the station, refine it, then haul it to market. But that was before mining frigates that could cloak and sneak into low sec, null sec, or wormhole space and grab really valuable stuff and sneak off. That is all new since I mined.
If that last bit interests you, you might look into Signal Cartel. That is part of their whole thing. The aren’t fighters, they throw snowballs and sneak around harvesting in dangerous places.
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Ehh…I see, can you put mining lazers on a ORCA? trying to figure out the largest practical solo mining ship. Not anywhere close to being ready for low sec or nul sec. I cant even face in the right direction of a hostile in space yet. was trying to shoot at some hostiles in the starter system but having trouble wanting to use my wasd keys…
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@Chaosrook – The mining lasers on a cargo ship for maximum storage is an idea that runs out of steam pretty fast. Dedicated mining ships get a much better yield. As I recall, the Mackinaw is the best mining platform when balancing yield vs. storage.
And I wouldn’t rule out Signal Cartel as they are pretty new player friendly. I might also suggest that you find an available agent and run some combat missions… or maybe some mining or hauling missions… just to give yourself a task that will give you and idea what to do and that you can Google if you get stuck.
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“I have to think that the whole article was at best a mixed win for CCP’s marketing group.”
I’m…less convinced.
The central description (and driving concept) that was attributed to Eve was ‘boring’. Not a good word or concept for Eve, I’d say. Whilst it was a little rough on Mittens (unusual) it failed to contest his central point (typical): that Eve is a pretty awful game, with no reason for people to play it other than “nerd-ery”.
Which is really a particular loss for CCP, I’d say. (I called it a knock out blow on CCP, for reference).
I was more disappointed by the deliberate lack of research, which left the whole piece feeling rather like a hack-job than an actual piece of journalism.
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Gevlon to me suggests someone that has grown up to understand the world through the lens of video gaming rather than take a real life framework into a video game, as most people do.
His philosophy is so full of self-evident truths crammed into a gaming perspective it’s like watching a child start to rationalize the world, only with bizarro results as he adapts his framework to account for the absurdities of internet culture.
I will miss reading his blog.
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Now, to address the more/most serious thing:
We keep losing bloggers, specifically to the Citadel changes: Gevlon, Luobote Kong, Merchant Monarchy.
And CCP’s rather blase attitude to the forum threads, especially when these people are calling out their worries and doubts, is rather confusing.
I tried, hopelessly, to provide input on the forum thread, but CCP doesn’t appear to be taking questions or advice right now.
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@Rob Kaichin – Well, I did say “at best” which would require one to believe that, in the end, there is no such thing as bad publicity, or at least that bad publicity is better than no publicity.
And CCP setup the interview according to the leaked chat logs, so clearly fell off path somewhere in helping the reporter do their research.
And of course, the International Business Times isn’t exactly the BBC either. I’m not sure how much reach they really have. Still smiling about the Lord British line though. Heh.
As for CCP listening… based on the last decade I think they first have to screw something up and see a sudden drop in subscriptions before their ears actually work. Right now there is a big war, subs are up, so Fozzie Sov is clearly a huge success and they can’t hear you over the sound of their being so damn right.
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I wonder if Derek Smart has been chumming up with gamergate thinking he can turn them against Chris Roberts? His interest level in SC seems to be beyond obsession at this point.
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> I am not sure why we got a reprieve until Monday
It’s due to Emancipation Day, which is celebrated in DC. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-dc-holiday-means-all-americans-get-three-extra-days-to-file-taxes-next-year/2015/05/22/a1711ce0-00b3-11e5-833c-a2de05b6b2a4_story.html)
:)
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Sad to hear Gevlon left EVE, he seemed to be like a fish in the water there (unlike his WoW days).
”isn’t exactly the BBC”
Speaking of which , the BBC apparently contacted Blizzard on why they don’t have Vanilla servers
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36044000
It may seem odd for the BBC to be even interested in this kind of thing, but at least since the 90’s (X-Files, Buffy) there was a section of the BBC dedicated to ‘Cult’ media. What may also have helped is that RuneScape’s Jagex is/was a British company and has been pretty forward on how their Legacy Server actually turned out (pretty impressive, in short)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-past-how-runescapes-official-legacy-server-avoided-kemp
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@NetherLands – Yeah, I saw those this morning. I even linked the a reference to the second story over on SynCaine’s post from earlier this week about WoW and vanilla servers, just to throw a bit more gasoline on the fire. Still, I doubt Blizzard will be moved one iota.
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@Wilhelm in regards to Chaos’s questions didn’t Gevlon have a bunch of stuff about how he earned his ISK? Is that not still relevant? I do know right after the whole deal with Test he posted a bunch of “safe” builds for miners to avoid getting ganked.
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I didn’t read the whole Star Citizen article… I mean, who has that kind of time? I did scroll through it looking at the memes and photoshops. I came away with the feeling that his opinions on the game have become a little bit… unhealthy? Obsessive? Psycho?
Whatever happened to “if you don’t like it, ignore it”? (I would say “don’t play” but it hasn’t come out yet…)
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It’s amusing the Gevlon entered EVE making a fool of himself (tackle titans, hauling badgers, furiously deleting comments and posts to cover up his foolishness and refusal to take advice), and leaves having failed to accomplish anything more than being recognized by everyone (including CCP) as being batshit crazy.
I do find a great deal of irony in that his main objective (to negatively impact Goons in a noticeable way) eluded him all along, and he ragequit because someone else did what he was trying to do but actually succeed (at least temporarily of course).
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Derek is becoming desperate for press as most people are ignoring him now. Since he was outed as the force behind the false smear campaign against the Roberts family I would have thought he would have slinked off quietly into the limelight to avoid any further legal troubles. His ego seems to have no limits.
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I think the ibt article was a win for the martini, or maybe it would have been if people hadn’t been able to comment. He tried to distance himself from the martini character, and the article helps him do that by writing all the evil shit he has done off as a sort of role play.
As multiple comments on the article points out however, between Alex and his character, the martini seems to be the lesser evil.
It’s a loss for CCP. The article paints the game as something it isn’t, It even goes as far as to say you have to mine to play… I think it also paints the player base as being full of ego central psychopaths, you know, by focusing the article around one.
As far as Gevlon goes, I didn’t like him, and I read his crazy blog twice, but I’m sad he’s gone for some reason.
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@chaosrook – the best solo mining ship for a new player (and old player) is the Procurer.
The biggest risk in mining solo is getting ganked, so you want to make yourself as unattractive a target as possible. The Procurer is cheap, esp. compared to the exhumers (Hulk, Mackinaw, Skiff) and can field a battlecruiser-class tank. Gankers prefer easier and more expensive targets.
As for the fit, go for maximum tank, not maximum yield. And, don’t fit expensive faction or deadspace modules – stick with T2 or T1 modules. Greedy max yield players get ganked frequently – and losing an expensive ship ends up costing you a lot more than the reduced yield from a max-tanked Procurer.
Note, too, that a max yield exhumer can be ganked by a single Catalyst, while a max tank Procurer cannot. I’m fairly certain that not even a gank-fit Vexor can successfully solo gank a max tank Procurer. I believe that it takes a Talos, or a gang of Catalysts to pop one.
Now, the Skiff (the exhumer version of the Procurer) is even more tanky, but, since it is much more expensive, it is also a more likely target for gankers. Essentially, it is worth losing a Talos to kill a Skiff, but not worth it to kill a Procurer.
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“The central description (and driving concept) that was attributed to Eve was ‘boring’.”
@Rob – this description is actually completely true, if you run away from big fights and hide in NPC stations. ;)
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@Anonymouse – Given that you felt the need to come here and complain about our strategy, I have to think it is working. If we were feeding you kills, you’d just be saying how bad we were. Instead you are complaining that we won’t do what you want.
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@Anonymouse
It isn’t just big fights that are interesting: I spent many, many hours solo belt ratting, and I loved it. The contemplative, meditative environ, combined with a community that’s always a delight to play around in, was very fun.
@Wilhelm
I thought ‘funny’ comments deserved a ‘Ha!’ :P
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@Rob Kaichin – I guess we’ll have to wait until one shows up to test that theory.
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You are fighting the hell war wilhelm, but goons lost 14 triage carriers failing to defend a rev in production and a 117bil Titan to four different mbc fleets today right before downtime. Goons also lost 3 other cap production posses in the eutz totaling around 380bil.
I personally got to be on grid with Titans for the first time.
So your bore tactics aren’t working. Especially because there are constant goon fleets out insuring a constant rate of content which doesn’t really pose a threat because its uncoordinated.
So while some goons are waging a hell war and spinning ships, mbc players are having the time of their lives.
Not that I judge you, I mean you’d also lose if you fought back.
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@Werd – I’m sure you’ll get back to me to let me know when we’ve lost… if you can beat Rob Kaichin to the punch.
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@wilhelm can you lose? I mean, it completely depends on what the definition of losing is. You have lost your space and untold billions of isk, but none of this seems to be breaking the core of your alliance.
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@Wilhelm
Well, that was harsh, but fair.
Without digging too much into the ‘he said, she said’ world of winning, what is your victory condition for your side?
(If you’ve already raised this, it’s entirely probably I’ve forgotten [due to early on-set dementia, or just plain stupidity :P] )
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@Wilhelm – I don’t see this as “your strategy”. I’m more inclined to believe that, if you were in charge, there would have been a news-worthy glorious last stand, a record-breaking battle bringing the server to its knees, lots of pew pew for the rank-and-file Goons, perhaps a surprise pull-the-rabbit-out-of-the-hat turnaround victory, and generally fun for all. Something so that everyone in the Imperium could say “I was there” for years to come (the “Remembver the Alamo” analogy comes to mind).
I’m not actually involved in this war on either side, and I’m neither pro-goon nor grr-goon, so I can actually be somewhat objective. But, I think that the decision to run and hide was a bad one, more about keeping the meta-gaming benefits going for a few, at the expense of in-game fun for the many. Sure, hiding in an NPC station may keep more digital assets safe, but, what is the point of that? This is just a game – a PVP game – and losing can be almost as much fun as winning, right?
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Anonymouse – “I’m not actually involved in this war on either side, and I’m neither pro-goon nor grr-goon, so I can actually be somewhat objective.”
If you say so. But you just saw one of our foes a couple comments up saying that fights were happening, and I’ve been out on plenty of ops, so when you show up and say we’re just “hiding in an NPC station” you sound like you’re here to troll.
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Goons aren’t hiding per say, they are just wolf packing in small fast/cloaky fleets. Which lets them kill off stragglers/miners/ratters while losing entire fleets when they caught.
So it’s a cat and mouse game in which the pilots of both sides think they are winning, and it’s mostly fought between ph and goons.
While this is happening all of the goon assets in the north are being burnt to the ground and sov is falling left and right. In the sov war goons have proven completely inefficient and strategically outplayed for now. But no one really knows if the goon defensive strategy works, because their overall plan of taking the north back once the attackers are bored can’t begin before the attackers are bored.
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