Archive for the 'EVE' Category

29
Jul

From Norrath to Lowsec

By angryraider 0 Comments
Categories: EVE and Everquest

I sometimes really miss EverQuest II. I considered rolling a new character, a necromancer, which is a class I always wanted to play but never did. I just don’t really want to pay for so many MMO subscriptions every month. Maybe when the next GU comes out, I’ll reactivate and play that Erudite necromancer I always wanted to be.

Meanwhile, in EVE, I finished training some vital skills. Core Competency Standard is currently underway, and I finished fitting my Raven with all of its awesomeness like shield extenders and shield rigs, along with some cruise missile launchers. Since my Raven is dedicated to low-sec ratting in Sylph Alliance sovereign space, I needed something to occupy my time in low-sec Empire space.

Enter HMS Bounty, my Caracal. This missile boat is built purely for PVP, with shields out the wazoo, heavy assault missiles, a warp jammer, and all the other goodies that will cost me millions to replace when I get blown up in .4 space. Like all of my other ships (Drake, Probe, Raven, etc), it’s another possession to add to my hangar and admire. But I’ve accepted right off the bat that this ship will likely be lost sooner rather than later. Hopefully I’ll get a few kills before that happens.

Tonight I’m headed into Sylph Alliance space and hoping I don’t get blown up on the way there. Wish me luck.

23
Jul

the ship collector

By angryraider 0 Comments
Categories: EVE

I will admit something to you today. I’m a completionist. Nothing makes me happier than acquiring something and all its accessories. I love the feeling of a complete set.

When I was a kid, I had tons of GI Joe action figures and vehicles. My brother and I would get everything out to play GI Joe. I’d meticulously set up my figures into organized units, position the vehicles exactly how I wanted them, and form a mental map of the events that would transpire. Upon completing that exercise, I’d say, “Well, that was fun.” My poor brother would complain about how we never actually played GI Joe.

This behavior continues into my MMO playing, to an extent. I never wanted to collect pets, or mounts, or specific types of flibbertygibbits. What I did want was to complete my set of gear. I would use a tool like Rawr or Wowhead to plan my gear, acquire that gear through raiding/pvp/etc, and then I was done.

In EVE, I’m able to fully enjoy my completionist habit. There are so many ships, and so many fittings, the possibilities for a fleet are nearly endless. I have already acquired several ships, fully outfitted them, and parked them in hangars. Occasionally I’ll pull one out and fly it around, but I don’t really do much. I have a couple of ships that are my regulars, and the rest of them are just, well, nice to have.

I have a Kestrel for mission running. I have a Hoarder for moving stuff around. I have a Cormorant for salvaging. I have a Drake with Tech 2 launchers just sitting in a hangar. I have a fully-fitted PVP powerhouse Raven. I have an Osprey for mining. I have a Probe for scanning. I have a Caracal because I needed to add a cruiser to the mix. I also have several frigates just sitting around.

Each one of these is fitted to the maximum of my capabilities. I have spent 250 million ISK on ships that I don’t use. And I don’t mind at all. I plan to get many more. I also plan to use them more than I do now; for example, I’m going to start taking my Raven to the wormhole with my corp to kill sleepers, and I plan to start hunting rats in the Caracal with one of my friends.

And the greatest thing is that I can lose it all. I love that risk. I’m scared of losing my Raven but I like “watching the skies” for that other battleship with battlecruiser escorts. It’s exhilarating to risk losing something that’s so important to me. (Fortunately, they’re just pixels.)

Part of me wishes I had gotten into EVE sooner, but I realize that I wasn’t ready for it. I needed to see the “traditional” MMOs through before I could really invest in a skill-based game like EVE or Darkfall. I miss EQ2 but with nobody to play it with, it’s just not fun.

We’ll see if EVE can sustain me. I’ll let you know how it goes.

15
Jul

dawn of eve. cheesy, i know.

By angryraider 0 Comments
Categories: EVE

Last night was a touchstone moment for me in EVE. I finished training the skills necessary to fly my Raven.

Wait, EVE? When did I start playing that? As it turns out, a few months ago. Let me explain.

I was at Best Buy with my wife and brother, browsing the PC games section. I noticed that Best Buy still had a copy of the Warhammer Online collector edition, which I wanted so bad back when WAR was new. As I scanned the boxes for something interesting to try out, I saw EVE Online.

CCP, the makers of EVE, had struck a distribution deal with Atari, and they released a boxed version of EVE in stores. They call this version “EVE Online Special Edition”, and it includes a 21-day buddy pass for your friends and a pretty nice Gallente shuttle that, as I found out later, is like a giant bullseye flying through space.

That’s what you do in EVE. You’re a pilot, and you fly spaceships. You don’t walk around. You’re always in your ship (or a pod). You outfit your ship with weapons, mining lasers, salvagers, and so on. And you can have more than one ship. In fact, you can have a practically limitless number of ships, spread all over the universe.

I decided to give EVE a try so I bought the game. I installed it on my Mac Pro when I got home and flew a few of the starter missions. I thought it was a pretty cool game. It’s skill-based, which is quite a bit different from WoW and EQ2, being level-based games. In EVE, you don’t go from 1 to a level cap, and there’s no endgame. Instead, you train skills, and each time a skill training is complete, you gain the ability to do something. For example, there’s a Targeting skill. Each time your Targeting reaches a new level (from 1 to 5), your capabilities in Targeting improves. It lets you target more accurately, with faster speed, and so on. If you plan on doing a lot of PVP, Targeting is a good skill to train, for example.

My 60-day EVE subscription expired with me putting maybe 3 or 4 hours into the game. I just didn’t really get into it, and I was playing a lot of EQ2. EVE doesn’t have the kind of “log in and quest” mentality that EQ2 has, so oftentimes I felt like I didn’t know what to do. Plus, I had no idea what to train my skills toward.

Fate intervened in the form of a coworker and one of his friends, who are both active and jubilant EVE aficionados. After a few conversations with them over tacos, I decided to resubscribe and give EVE another try. I followed their advice and made ample use of EVEWiki, downloaded EVEMon, and read about certificates. I started a new character so I’d have a clean slate, started training the basic core competency, and set out in the world with the intention of becoming a pirate.

As I traveled from stargate to stargate for various missions, I came across a very impressive-looking ship. It was the Raven. I knew right then that I had to have one. Being the goal-oriented person I am, I immediately set my plan into motion. I went into EVEMon, created a plan for the Raven, decided on a loadout, added all the skills to my plan, and started the 15 day process of learning the skills I needed to fly this badboy.

But I also needed a way to pay for it. The Raven is 80 million ISK, and the training books were easily 10 million. It would take me months to earn 90 million ISK from mission running. That’s when my coworker told me about PLEX.

PLEX is an EVE timecard that you can buy from CCP and sell in-game for ISK. It’s built right into the game. Long-term players with billions of ISK don’t even pay to play EVE anymore; they buy PLEX on the market. I bought two cards for $35 total and sold them for almost 700 million ISK. My money problems were solved immediately.

I’ve never had a problem with RMT when it is sanctioned by the maker of the game. I’ve bought server transfers, gender changes, name changes, Station Cash, and FreeRealms cards, so to me, PLEX was no different. My instant millionaire status still didn’t allow me to fly the Raven: I had to wait, just like everyone else.

My long-term goal is to do missions with my Raven, help my corporation mine wormhole space by blowing up sleepers, maybe PVP in .4 space. Someday I’ll get a Tech 2 ship like a Widow, and maybe even join a corp that lives in 0.0 like GoonFleet.

Here I am today, Raven Day + 1, and my beautiful new ship is sitting in the hangar, waiting for me to undock it and fly around. But I can’t do anything with it. I don’t have my Cruise missiles, or my capacitor efficiency, or shields. I have to wait until Sunday for those skills to finish training.

I love this game.