2010-09-19

What would happen if the servers go offline forever?

This month my first mmo server will be shut down. I'd never thought that would hurt this much, as all the data are just a few bits and bytes on some server in the unknown webspace. But hell, I've spent and wasted some good 4 years there, had a lot of ups and more downs, and found my boyfriend there, and we quit that server 2 years ago, and joined Eve. And we're still together and marriage is planned - I've never thought that turning an Internet relationship into something more graspable would really be possible, just because most (though not all) people on the internet are jerks. Or act that way as the shroud of anonymity hides their true self. Either way, its rare to find people who you can trust and count to your real friends, true friends, who stick up to the good and more importantly, bad times of your life. This counts to RL as to Inet-L, imo.
But back to my server: It hurts. A lot. Right now I've fallen back to that game, how simple it may be, but really need to sit down and think what will happen to my chars, as a account transfer to another server wont be done as far as I know. Restarting on another countrys server isn't really an option, if one official server dies, the others wont last too long in my opinion. So its either going grey, joining a pserver, or digging a small grave for my chars....

I've bought a soundtrack of the game music about a week ago, even I have all of them as mp3s, as they're included in every game client, but as I opened the package from Yokohama, there was the very first version from 2004 without any upgrades and game additions included. Hum hum, well I guess its going grey then, but for myself only. And so I can play with my server and mod it to my liking - and keep my chars.

But all the thoughts on another game aside, it got me thinking. People spend a real long time on a game, get attached, become addicted, live more in a game than in RL, get the curb, play a game, and have gotted "ahead" quite a bit and perhaps are even a known personality within the community. But how do these people react, when, let say, Eve would shut down? Would they set up an memorial of some sort, perhaps getting as much merchandise as possible, to remind them of the good times? Or would they go even grey, trying to private server the game in some way?
Or would they shrug, smile remembering the fun times and move on to another server or game?And what impact would it have to your life?

As for me, I'm back an my old game, and less and less here in Eve. Seems like I will never get over my first game.... :)

2010-08-10

Summer Sun and shiny Knights

As summer progresses, I must admit, that I haven't been very active in EvE nor in any other games that I play, such as DragonAge, Cabal Online and occasionally some others. Right now I'm in a phase where I could care less concerning computers and their seductions, rather more in which I want to get out, enjoy the warm rays and socialize, or work on other projects, such as typing up a sci-fi/fantasy story from a pen and paper race I've been working on for a good ten years by now (whew, that long already?) and drawing up some artwork to go along with it.

But back to this posts title, this saturday I'll be heading over to a medieval market at where my parents live, something I've been doing for 8 years now, as that market is around only every two years. I'll see that I'll do some pictures to post here for everyones enjoyment. =)

Otherwise, Zaja's close to having Electronics done, and will move to Engineering by next week - so closer to good fits, for a good yarr-gal.

~Zaja

2010-07-15

Eve-Athon: Failageddon

I've just read about the contest over at Crazy Kinux and EvePress, which was opening its doors with the question of:

The Hulkageddon Effect -

Eve Online is a great universe where anyone can do anything. Now in its 3rd iteration Hulkageddon has become a major event in New Eden, with many player creating alts just to participate in the event. With over 20 billion ISK in prizes who can blame them. But there are other consequences of such events, hulk prices shoot through the roof, mineral prices rise, and players loose their hard earned ships. So here is the question, do events like Hulkageddon do more to improve the game or hurt from the game?


Generally speaking, I'm definitely supporting the idea of player initiated events, such as the Hulkageddon or others, perhaps smaller events. It just adds more to the flavor of the game, and it also shows that people/players care for their game and wanting to share their feelings.

So, thinking back now a bit, there haven't been many really big - such as player-galaxy impacting events going on ingame (or better: none that I know of), which have been done by GM's for entertainment purposes nor from the playerbase. Since the Hulkageddon has been initiated people seem to enjoy these types of events, even if it was done to remove macrominers in the beginning.

I'm not against events as a whole, nor pvp events in general. I also understand and agree to the not quite safe due to constant gank threat concept of EvE, even like it. If it was possible, I'd contribute to some extent to event planning groups (ideawise, not ISKwise), and perhaps if it would be done, to some event team from CCP. During the time of those galaxy impacting events the prices skyrocket, good for everyone contributing to those events, miners - stockpiling minerals and selling them before and afterwards, prodder - producing clearly needed destroyable ships and modules, perhaps interacting with the aforementioned miners and mission runners, who find some metalevel stuff which can be sold for a nice price. In the end, everyone profits that there is an event going on, instead of the mind slumbering same old day to day content.

What I do not agree with are two things:

a)killing "defenceless" miners.

Its always the miners who get primaried first. And it does not matter if it is in low and nullsec, or wormhole space - or in high sec during the Hulkageddon. I've never got the point of a pirate or wannabe-pirate where the fun is of killing a mining ship. Thrillkill? not really. Even if its just for the killmail, I disagree. Most miners enjoy their profession maximizing their skills and their trade in that field, so even if people just say, go get a Drake and start missioning or even switch ships, shoot back, to some, that option is simply not possible.
Looking back on my mains career, mining hurts the ability to successfully fight back, if there is an aggression, and it takes a lot and long time to compensate this. So killing mining ships for the sake of fun, I'm not so sure if thats the right way to go - just because it takes a while to compensate the loss for a normal lowly miner.
Of course, there are options (and often repeated in the forums), such as watching local for disturbances, e.g. nonlocals, directional for warping ships, and perhaps the better option, locking up the barge for that week and do something else. Fitting an buffer fit, corestabs and such won't help, because if people want to see you dead in that ship, it will die. Also the suggestion I've read once (to fit Modulated Strip Miner II, Arkonor Mining Crystal) isn't an option, because the event is galaxywide nowadays, instead of just high-sec. That leads us to part two:

b) Miners are the victims, ingame and out of game.

As beforementioned, many miners can't join the hulkageddon, because of lacking skills, nor have the desire or the drive to join the massive slaughter and its resulting standing hits, thus are forced to do what they do best: mine. And get slaughtered, or option b, quit the game for a week and do something else. Sure, its a way of conduct to avoid the loss of expensive ships, but it's also a way of cutting off people who enjoy this game for its relaxed atmosphere, socializing while mining, and generally enjoy this game in a nonviolent, and peaceful way. So ingame, those people can't join their normal activities, and they loose a week of their fun, while being inactive - perhaps its also a real-currency impact, if those players loose a week for their plex or of gametime, which they had paid for.

In conclusion, I do agree for contests and galaxy spanning events. But it should not be on the backs of a (dedicated) group of people, not in any way. Especially if it is taken into account that they potentionally can't fight back. Make events fair, for everyone to enjoy and participate, then I could fullheartedly support any type of event.

~Zajamaru

2010-07-06

A new shiny!

For the last year I've been flying a sturdy Drake for any type of mish's, hardly having to warp out at all. But my friends mission boat, a navy megathron, kept outdamaging, outspeeding me a bit, so I thought that it be nice to step up a bit and also have a go at battleships.

First, my Drake:

[Drake, Angel Setup]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Ballistic Control System II

Heat Dissipation Amplifier II
Explosion Dampening Amplifier II
Kinetic Deflection Amplifier II
Heat Dissipation Amplifier II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II

Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Advanced 'Limos' Heavy Missile Bay I, Thunderbolt Heavy Missile
Small Tractor Beam I

Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Bay Loading Accelerator I

Hobgoblin II x5

I'm a purist, I must add. I frown on hybrid builds with an Invul field and shake my head at active shielding - for me the mighty Drake tanks as well as a battleship, has the battlecruiser speed and manouverability bonus - but the downside is its dps. It may be better if you use T2 ammo and bays, but I'm quite skeptical if it would really come even against a BS. Truth be told, I've tried it against my friends Navy a few months ago, and would have won, since his cap skills aren't the best. Otherwise it would have been a stalemate, I think.

Okay, now heres my thoughts and requirements about a BS for me:
a) it needs to be shield tanked.
Dont ask me, I tend to have problems with armor ships, starting with fittings, then also flying them. I always seem to have a lot more cap problems with armor tankers than with shields.

b)fast ammo switch, and good dps.
I love lasers for the light show, also for the fast ammo switching thing, and that they dont need much ammo to carry around. So actually they're my favourite, but as a big negative, they only offer two damage types (EM & Therm) so they only offer so much usability in all types of missions, plus, eat a hell of cap.
Rockets. Good for damages types, but bad for dps. I've been discussing this problem with my bf yesterday, and we decided rockets are good for fleets, if at all.
Projectile Weapons, might be something to go into, since they offer a good damage multiplier and all types of damage and do not eat any cap, thus can shoot until they fall of the ship. But they're so slow, and need a ton of ressources to fit a bunch of them on a ship. Secondly, ammo again.
And last but least, hybrid weapons. They're fast, need quite some ammo, drain some cap and offer only two damage types (again).
So what do you do as a mission runner considering this dilemma? I sure have no answer, so I guess we'll have to look at some bs for answers:

Okay we want a shielder... so I guess it'll be Caldari or Minmatar.
I have built myself a Rokh quite a while ago which was gathering some dust, but I wasn't so sure about flying it. Sure it looks cool, but is it usable?
First I thought about a Scorpion, since the Tyranis update they have gotten a good redesign, one which I liked. But the dual weapon setup is, difficult to play with, as one can't really do much about the double burden of damage mods etc. So it got dropped quite quickly.
Nightmare. A nightmare to get stable to be honest. And its design is, well... meh. Not for me, though I like the shield laser idea. Maybe on another ship.
Raven. All hail the Raven. I guess, wrong. Sturdy tank, but as Rockets go, bad dps. Dropped.
Tempest. Bad looks. Dropped.
Maelstrom. Played with it quite some time in EFT, and it is quite a nice boat. Might even be the ship in the future for me, but right now, I dont have much in Minmatar ships (frigs to III, to be honest) and don't want to lengthen the Leadership training time too much. Dropped temporarily.
Same goes for the Machariel.
So in the end I got stuck (more or less) with the Rokh, and played around with a (medium sized) Large laser variant, not really stable, so-so dps, but might be really fun to fly.

[Rokh, Lazor Baby]
Damage Control II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II

Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Magnetic Scattering Amplifier II
X-Large Shield Booster II
Shield Boost Amplifier II
Heavy Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 150

Dual Heavy Beam Laser II, Multifrequency L
Dual Heavy Beam Laser II, Multifrequency L
Dual Heavy Beam Laser II, Multifrequency L
Dual Heavy Beam Laser II, Multifrequency L
Dual Heavy Beam Laser II, Multifrequency L
Dual Heavy Beam Laser II, Multifrequency L
Dual Heavy Beam Laser II, Multifrequency L
Dual Heavy Beam Laser II, Multifrequency L

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Semiconductor Memory Cell I

Hammerhead II x5

But currently, as I only can use it as an anti-Angel boat (Rails eat too much cap for other missions) I have this:

[Rokh, Angel Setup]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Tracking Enhancer II
Damage Control II
Power Diagnostic System II

Invulnerability Field II
Ballistic Deflection Field II
Heat Dissipation Field II
X-Large C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge L

Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Capacitor Control Circuit I

Hammerhead II x5

In my opinion, it goes a little less, timewise, than the Drake, considering that I don't really have the gunnery skills up yet, but it is sure a nice new shiny boat to fly around. The only down side is, that I have only a 24km max range with Antimatter charges (I should take some Irons with me, might be something - 41km range) so it's a long wait sometimes for them getting into range.

~Zaja

2010-07-01

Hi Sec Carebearing.. weee~~~

I've left Valkyrie Industries with Kia and returned to my hisec home in Genesis. When I joined I got hungry for the riches and the fun it is having a deeeeep safe right next to a hisec gate when I had joined a starting WH corp prior V.Ind. (They have, as far as I know died out by now, Corp Mismanagement ftw). So about 7 long months ago I had joined Vind and it was fun to do. The alliance has a few static hisec holes they operate from, but with each new hole they settled, I had gotten the feeling that they were more and more falling apart. It may be my view, but its never good if only some players get all the cream, and the rest... well GTFO. Im not griping how terrible they are, just an analysis of fun with everone for a couple of months, then.. well .. nothing. It may be just a hiccup some corps have occasionally, as new members join, and change the attitude within the corp somehow. But anyways (and to cut my Vind rant a little shorter) it was a good experience and insight of how nullsec mechanics work on a small scale. So my next stop on my to do list will be null sec, as soon as i got my skills trained up and honed, and some new shiny ships are in my backjard, might take some while though, 'specially since I'm still waiting on those trice damned Leadership skills to get done.

Otherwise - heres a short post on my experiences for a wormhole:
- take what u absolutely need, u will loose it to 99%. All the rest, the nice and shiny, they'll sit in a hangar gathering dust.
- You'll die, probably more than once.
(I never had, just lost a Damnation from being impatient)
- Be ready to travel. A lot.
(It gets to you after a while, even you dont know it a first)
- Supply is scarce (maybe has changed with PI a bit, dunno) but buy stuff at least double, better to a dozen.
- And for those who do have a WH corp, do your Corp management really well, know who you can trust and give out rights as little as possible. Especially POS rights, anchor rights. Or you might log in and warp to your POS moon and theres no more POS. (I could have done it while leaving Vind, would have been quite a net gain too. But I like to have good standings :)
- All your money you gain with mining and sleeper-ing, you wont see much from it, as the hole will eat most of it back, not counting losses.

In 7 months, I've made about 2 to 2.5 bil playing casually and wasted some, but maybe made 500mil more than being back in "safe" hi sec doing mishs. So if u like running around going slowly insane while doing so and shooting the occasinal and notorious pvper playing gate games (its like docking games. only with wormhole "gates" - insanely annoying), have a try with wormholes. :)
I for my part, will do some mining in my homes backjard, fly some mishs in the neighborhood and enjoy carebearing some more.

Fly safe,
~Zaja

2010-06-24

PI Tinker

So, I have returned.

And what happenes? (/emorage) Servers down, and I cant play, nor try the things which I've seen and spent hours on - PI. So much for new goals, new frontiers.

Well at lat last I've spent a nice sunny day outside, my bf coming home early and well, different than the usual same ol' - same ol' wasting time on Eve. (If someone here jumps up and yells "Eve is not wasted time!!!111! - to be honest, it is. But a fun and creative way to waste time ;)

Now I was able to set up some CC's and start a small chain for Oxygen and Enr.Uranium near my future POS and lets see maybe I'll even get the Robotics from somewhere - sofar it been like 10-15 mil isk input, counting for PI and Skills etc - I just hope this will come at least even when I'll set up that POS, just in hope for saving a few iskies that way in the long run. Im shivering a little bit though, that six months are enough time to grind Amarr standings high enough (from -1.10) to start that project, but then, who knows?

2010-06-03

Long lost Love~

No this Blog hasn' t died (so much to weekly posts...), I've been on quite an Eve break and will continue doing so for another 2 weeks or so - at least I'm out of the bloody Hospital again. Been in and out this year a bit, so lets just hope it'll be that last time.

Otherwise nothing much has happened, been training Electronics on Zaja and am quite intrigued how the Cyno field generator works. But that will have to wait though, since she is a Int-Mem build right now - so no time for ships or guns. And I WANT PewPew!! how ironic......

Kias close on having full Warfare link capabilities, perhaps there will be some time when she's more needed than in her current Corp/alliance, which I' m thinking on leaving for other projects I want to try out. And that with having weekly wars going on... I begin to wonder if they really know what a tool they have in their hands - T3 capable, Implant fitted Warfare linker.. but they rather skirmish than do a proper fleet.. *sigh* oh well... Egos and bad planning dont go so well, I think. Even I want to get out, get fresh air I'll be staying for the prodding capabilities - making T2 stuff is kinda fun, or so I've found through my BF's prodder alt.

So much that I wish to do other things, I'll return to my home region, move close to everything out of the wormholes we have and then relax with Missions and Exploration. Maybe save up for another Orca and mine a bit (not that I need tons of money or so) and then do something else.

cya soon and fly safe
~Zaja