Twas a good weekend... but went very fast...

Weekends tend to fly past in the blink of an eye, last weekend for some reason skipped by faster!  Even with the weekend going so fast I was still able to game. 

BF4 saw me get some good upgrades/levelling and matches were in general good. Overall I'm now able to string together 3 to 5 kills before getting done in myself. That's a bit of an improvement. The only thing that brings the score down is when using a new weapon, change my usual loadout or trying to do something silly like use the sniper rifles.

Wow was the usual farming dailies, I should have 2 more characters unlock the 4th plot tonight, that gives me 3 characters with the full farm. My engineer almost has enough living steel to make the sky golem. A quick guild run to the older raids was done for a bit as was some work on professions. Still lots to do and no real motivation to do it. It's all turned very ad-hoc.
I got to do some more dungeons for rep and got the new shoulder for my Rogue. I think they suit him better than the other more flamboyant shoulders at the start. I need to get a proper transmog set to make him really stand out.

 
Eve saw the biggest amount of time of all the games dedicated to it.
The usual "dailies" for jobs in PI/POS and skill queue's were done. The POS was refuelled.
The PI for the null alt has had a lot of changes but I think I'll have to think a bit about whats happened and is happening and do a bit of a separate post about that.

My friend that lost his Dominix and an interceptor got them resurrected.
I say resurrected because the insurance was removed from his wallet and a semi fit was on the ships, the fit depending on what didn't survive the explosion.
Other mods that did drop were scooped by the mobile tractor and that was then destroyed by another player the next day for its loot. But good one for CCP giving back the destroyed ships and modules.
Saved him from spending another 200 mill. Plus he was glad to get the gear I sent him, I think.
We ended up doing some missions last night till the last mission finished and we realised it was the weeee hours of the morning. Much salvaging was had.

I spent some time between all my characters seeing what T1 modules I could sell/refine before the patch hits. It worked out well and both my mains and alts got isk for modules as well as materials to use.
Bit of a spring clean can be healthy.

Back to my usual jabber.....

My usual eve "dailies" have continued to march on, updating and collection of PI/POS jobs/skill q’s.

I did move my Minmatar alt to a major level 4 mission hub to see how testing of a battleship with a friend would go, but after getting some news that didn't happen. 
Apparently due to lagging out he lost his missioning ship/loot/tractor unit/drones, then lost another ship that went in to salvage/scoop the loot. So he does not seem to be a happy bunny. Understandable but a bit odd… usually on disconnecting your ship will collect drones and do an emergency warp. The kill log info gives no real information. Petitions were logged.

I sent him a bunch of stuff, drones/some lower t1 ships/replacement +fit. He is still very put out by the game at the moment and not talking about it at all….. may take a bit to get back into it. 
 

PI for both my mains is starting to be a joke… they are really being hit with tax’s, one poco was replaced by a 1 man corp that is talking 25%!! Needless to say I've nto used it, the others have me down about another 5 to 8 million. So while on my main I sent a mail to the corp diplo/leader that holds the planets poco’s I use, they added my corp as +5 so that’s 3% less tax… not bad at all.

Will see how the weekend offers.

The usual goes on......

posts of interest....

Read this post as Eve is a game of player experiance i thougth it was interesting.

This next one is also worth a read as its something I aim towards..... pvp, I just never really seem to get there.

And this one from Jesters trek turns a nice shiney stratios into a pvp killer.

Great posts about Industry

Just came across this blog and it has a great 3 part post about getting started in Eve industry....

http://theeveindustrialist.blogspot.ie/2014/03/where-do-i-start-part-1.html

Still tremoring

There are still a lot of things being said about Jesters earthquake, but I think this post by Evehermit brings it "home".

Posts, posts and more posts....

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with the metagame involved with eve online, a lot of people don't bother at all. I like to be informed even if it's to surf the web and catch the general big issues/news players are concerned about. Today the things that I seemed to view the most were these:


Jesters latest is interesting and has links to the official forums where there is a lot being said/spammed, as well as this. There are lots of different - view's about it on the web.


On the new changes to the industry side I think the reduction of reprocessed materials will be the biggest slap to my mission running face... maybe I'll have to setup a reprocessing module in my hi-sec POS for the extra mining that I'll be doing..... this post was of interest in looking at the changes.


There was also this post that reminded me about the music from eve online. I used to be probably one of the few I know that kept the music in game on. It's just not the same since the jukebox was removed a few patches ago. I must make use of the SoudCloud site. I think the combat music in general is good, but does not compete with music you can do yourself to suit your mood. I'll have to post up a playlist at some stage...
Tracks from Eve that have always stood out to me. Rose of Victory, Mission05, Mission04 & this.


A great view of the soon to be Eve online TV "show" is written in this blog. Makes me wonder what happened to the Eve online documentary.

Facebook has it.....

I hope the buyout doesn't shatter my Eve: Valkyrie dreams....

Info all over the web about the takeover....
Official:
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/oculus-joins-facebook/
Blog:
http://pgandt.blogspot.ie/2014/03/oculus-vr-purchased-by-facebook.html
In the news:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26746694

 

http://evevalkyrie.com/

I love my brick!

I tend to be sentimental about tech stuff that I buy, and with life in general.

That's not to say I'm a hoarder (I'm not) or that I wont' buy new stuff (I do), but I do keep my old tech if I think I can get some more valuable use/enjoyment out of it.
This type of tech usually ends up in the back of a closet or sent to the attic.


About 10 years ago I bought an iRiver H340, loved it for its versatility and ability to be used in so many ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iriver_H300_series

Unlike phones today that can do everything (except iPhones... I hate apple's restrictions) the iRiver gave me the ability to watch movies, listen to music/radio, record, use it as storage etc.

In comparison the phone I had at the time of buying the iRiver was:

A K300i

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/sony-ericsson-k300i-review/

And the mid range usb sticks of the "time" were 512MB and cost about €50.... funny to look back at.

Over the years my iRiver was really well used, until the hard drive failed. Parts at the time cost a lot and I ended up buying another instead. They were rare enough at that time and ended up having to get it through a tech supplier I know and have it shipped from Singapore. Long story short the newer one was used for a long long time.

As circumstances changed it wasn't used as much as before and finally was boxed. Both iRivers, accessories etc. shelved.

I recently came across the box and started to use it again, I also had an eye on the old "broken" version. The love of the device was rekindled and I looked up the parts that had once been expensive. Online today these are plentiful and cheap. Replacements were gotten.

I found this great little video on youtube to help with the dismantling.

The new parts have breathed new life into a device I shall have and use for a long long time to come.

I'm was happy with the last (International) firmware release done so many years ago. However there is a freeware firmware that makes it compatible with a lot of newer codecs.  I might try this out at some stage.
Rockbox is free and works with many other digital music players, not just this version iRiver. http://www.rockbox.org/manual.shtml

My H340 was once called a brick, like I said I'm sentimental about my old tech. It may not be on my hip to and from work anymore but I love my brick!

Weekend of roguery paid off....

My new level 90 rog had a good weekend, some heroic scenario's saw him get 2 new items. I spent a good bit of time getting a few transmog's together as well.

The usual farming/professional dailies were done and plenty of ore/cloth and harmony's were gotten over most of the 90's.

An off the cuff moment saw a quick achi run to get a few done in Northrend and  finally got this done:

Both had to be done in one run and quiet quickly ... the Share the love only lasted a few re-spikings of people.

With getting all the transmog's the current look of my rog is a lot better than the last time I posted.

In doing the transmog runs and dungeons in general to get get quartermaster/faction rep I also got a mount drop I didn't expect.

I've been running that dungeon randomly on and off for that mount knowing the rarity of the drop rate and on the side chance I'd get it.... and it did happen!

I have to say that for the first time in my playing of wow that that mount dropping was a real jaw dropping, stop me in my tracks, gasping, joyous moment I've ever had... very real 'wow' factor. The random number generation god(s) forgot to look this way for that drop... nice!

Side blog of interest....

Sisters of EVE Epic Mission Arc Experience

http://epicarc.blogspot.ie/

Reprocessing changes....

Three things strike me after reading about the new changes to reprocessing....

http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/reprocess-all-the-things/

That I wont' be getting as much ore for the mods that I reprocess after missioning. It's the main way I get ore, not that I'm big into production but the thoughts of actually having to go mine.... for real mine.... I really have to go mine it.... really.....


How good the new ui looks when doing the reprocessing.

&

That skilling up will be easier to train up, that my mains may actually get to learn the ore processing skill books they got a few years ago as freebies from  CCP.


This blog goes into the real details of that the changes may/will mean:
http://vonkeigai.blogspot.ie/2014/03/economics-of-new-reprocessing.html
but the comment at the bottom .....

"GevlonMarch 21, 2014 at 2:53 AM

I'm sorry, but you got it wrong. Holding ores gives you nothing. While on patch day the mineral contents of your ore increase by 38%, your reprocessing skill drops to 72.4%, so you will gain the same minerals: 1.38*0.724= 1"

Quote....

Two friends that I've gotten to know from work are also gamers, one I got into wow, the other is a long time Eve player ( on and off ) and is the friend I have mentioned returned recently to Eve.

Funny how its worked out. One plays wow and tried eve, the other plays eve and tried wow. I seem to pick up the slack and play both.

Yesterday during a quiet moment when we all found each other in the same place at the same time we got chatting.
The quote was a reply to my Eve friend saying  "play Eve", the reply from my wow friend, "I tried, you'd need a masters in it before playing!".
Laughter and banter was had, but it reminded me about my start in eve...
I'll not waffle about it again here. But it did take 2 tries to really get into it and even on the 3rd attempt it was touch and go. If not for yet another friend that started about the same time I may not have lasted long enough to really get Eve online.
The perception of Eve's learning cliff seems to be too well known.

Lots of out of game blog's, sites etc have either bemoaned the lack of a "proper" tutorial, lack of new players, or haunt the opposite side of the issue, no wow "noobs" need apply, don't simplify it etc. All of that is for another argument/debate.

A lot of things in Eve are solely down to player to player interactions, and people are complex beings if they want to be.

Eve is a game of tangents. Eve is a line, some touch that line once, others many times, sometimes its an out of game blog or podcast. One thing is for sure, it is a sandbox, it's a blessing and a curse. CCP have to walk the finest of lines to keep most of the people happy most of the time.

To try and sell the game to a friend is the best way to get a person playing, but to sell it to them is to sell their own traits to themselves with a healthy dose of patience.

Its hardcore, its casual, it's interactive, it's passive, it's interesting, it's dull, it's safe, it's heart pounding unsafe. I'm glad I found it and stuck with it.
 

http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/wtd/

Eve Planetary Interaction guide.....

A great guide featured on http://factionfitpod.blogspot.ie/2014/03/a-slice-of-pi.html well worth a download and read....

Hearthstoned........

I had been grinding away with rated matches once I had finished my last round of NPC's.

It took some time but I eventually got a win.

 

Promoting me to Angry Chicken with one star.

After this match I reordered the deck I had for Hellscream. Taking two of all the lower end cards and only selecting the higher cards that had taunt and abilities that helped other lower cards.

The next win came in a very touch and go match, but I got to clear the main threats and hammer home attacks on the player.

 

Star number two for the Angry Chicken

The third match followed the next day with a lot of luck due to a lack of my opponents cards with taunt.

This upgraded me to Leper Gnome with one star.

And gave the third victory I needed.

For the mount I wanted.

Nice...

The match making does tend to be very random in it's pairing, as a starter the last thing you want to see is a person that's 4 or 5 levels better then your current rank.

The best tactic I found was to get lots of smaller minion cards on the go with a lot of taunts as well. One or two lower level cards that cost 2 or 4 mana summon two 2 health taunt cards, these are great to divert attacks.

Better also to trade cards at the start I usually change anything that costs 5 mana or over to see what I can get. 

The first two turns are really for mana gathering but can also show what kind of opponent you will be facing in the cards s/he plays. You'll soon see if they are waiting for mana generation or playing smaller cards to get you with the death by a thousand paper cuts.

Never give up, you never know what the next card you'll be dealt can bring.
Better to take your time and think about what is happening and how the card combinations can work.

The most cards I had to face off against was this defeat:

 

Totally hammered from the start.

From the wiki the game is free and seems that it will always be even when out of beta. Microtransactions may be it's payday. Free or not I don't know if I'll go back to playing it. Maybe if/when its out on android or if there is another "special" mount to get.... time will tell.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearthstone:_Heroes_of_Warcraft

All rounder....

The long weekend here for Paddy's day was over in the blink of an eye. I think I need a week to recover from it, not that I even drink.... or party hard.... or got up to anything strange.... but am still shattered.

Lots of gaming was still done. The jury is still out on weather it was all productive in-game time.

 ___________________________________

Apologies first for double posting, I have a habit of creating and editing posts quickly, errors do get through, including miss clicking when correcting posts that are "out". Dang the update and repost options.
With luck when I do re-edit a post in future I will update rather then repost.
Publish and Save are also a little too close together for comfort, fingers crossed I avoid that mistake.

 ___________________________________

Wow in general contained bouts of the usual farming/dailies; And getting used to my new level 90 rog.  I've not gotten the numbers I'd like with Assassination so I may turn him over full time to a combat spec. My other half boosted her hunter to 90, it was a toss up between a hunter and her Paladin.... Hunter won through ease of use I think. I'll not really mention the abuse during tanking on the pala....

10 More living steel will see my Hunter get his Sky Golem..... must plant more ore....

Even with the timeless Isles gear the divide between the epically equipped has never been larger. It used to be that if you had epic purples you were (almost) set... now its the shade of purple you have that makes the difference!

The weekend saw my Hearthstone mount goal completed. I'll post that up in detail separately.
Once I had finished and gotten the Hearthsteed I logged into wow to be greeted with this:

Talk about timing!

So I collected the mount....

Got the achi....

Then re-subbed for 6 month's..... that's a lot of money Blizz has gotten from me in the last week....
1 special edition of WoD expansion, 1 normal edition of WoD Expansion & a 6 month sub, thank crunchy it was pay week.

I got to handin a lot of the gear for transmog's and then used them to transmog my hunter...

Still needs a lot to complete the look...

 ___________________________________

I did a fair amount of battlefield 4 as well, some good matches and some bad matches, all kept me coming back for more.
I've just gotten to level 31, unlocked all but the recon class's perks and am about half way through that. I am not a fan of the Sniper rifles, although I can appreciate the skill involved. Much better to flank the snipers overlooking whatever point and bayonet them.... I find that quiet therapeutic especially after they snipe me and dont' move from their perch.
I'm also trying to find the best role for each class with the best layout of gear per map/match type, but I think mixing and matching between spawns is "fine".
As I play the recon class I seem to be leaning more towards an Engineer type of play sytle, upgrading the carbines and using the C4 against tanks and such. I think I'll have to take my time in larger games to actually start being a sniper/dedicated marksman properly. Overall I'm very happy with the Assault/Support and Engineer setup.
As some stage I need to finish off the single player campaign after the last save game corruption just to be sure I can get access to more unlockables.

 ___________________________________

Eve was again the usual PI/POS and skills updates.

My main main has reached the longer term skills around the 21 Days+ mark. I think I'll have to redo a list of skills that alt's have that he does not. That's another "thing" I have, if an alt is all level 4's in say armour skills, and on comparison I see that my main only has level 3's in the same skills.... that's a stop the press moment.

My second main had done enough missions to get the 120k LP needed to buy the Stratios cruiser bpc.

I have to say that owning both the frig and the cruiser has been a bit of a double edged sword. Actually owning the ships has proved different. The gaining of LP and the making of isk has been good. As they say the want is not as good as the have.

Better to use a Buzzard than the SOE frig, I can see the use of the cruiser being better, as a Buzzard upgrade, but I can't think of a case where I would actually use it instead.
For now they are fitted collectors pieces.

I'll do a lot more soe missions so that the second main gets more sec statues/isk/loot and LP to buy the main main a bpc as well.... (another "thing" I do, cant' have one char with and one without).
Once that's done I think I'll be concentrating on epic arc's on both characters. Then moving on to Incursions with the main.

My Null alt finally got a chance to setup the plasma planet, with a lil more luck I'll get the final product rolling out properly by the end of the week.

Better Blogging....

I don't do a lot of the things listed....

http://k162space.com/2014/03/07/tips-for-eve-blogging/

Eve Alt & Null PI...... minor update.

I've not had a lot of time to work with my Null alt over the last week.

Last weekend when I did have a chance to log in, my area was being roamed about and disrupted with reds and neuts. While I can usually avoid the odd 1 or 2 in local I really can't avoid 5 to 10 per system when they are causing havoc.

So instead I updated my current 3 planets from the comfiness of my Captains quarters.
I've had to add in extra advanced processor units to increase output of materials as I am a little swamped with basic mats. I really really really need to setup the plasma planet and get going on the final process's to get things 100% up and running.

So far it's been about 3 weeks since I first started the changes to the PI process's, this really needs to be followed through a.s.a.p.

Hearthstone.....

I played hearthstone last night. I had read/seen information about it before but as I'm not into card games I didn’t pay much attention to it. That is until a friend said that you can get a free wow mount from it!! 

It's in open Beta at the moment and looks pretty polished.

 http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=8345/hearthstoned

It's a little quirky and fun and was easy to get into unlike others I've tried. I got the npc starter opponents all done with only 1 loss. I then moved on to the class specific hero's, defeated the hunter but as it was late I ended that but I'll return to it and keep going until I get 3 wins in a row to get the mount. So I'll have to see how the online pvp goes.

The mount my friend got was the blue one, I'd like to get both.... may not happen.

and this pic of them from MMO Champ flying looks like they have cool wings:

Here is my last npc play through in quick-pics:

Nice of them to say so....

 

Open Beta is here:
http://eu.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/12440010/hearthstone-open-beta-is-here-22-01-2014

Worth a try even if your not into wow.

Eve Ship "changer"......

The patch was downloaded last night and although things look more detailed there is a darker overshadowing that makes it hard to make out certain details. I'll have to tweak the brightness and contrast to see things better.
After my usual daily checks and balances I had a look at the NEX store for the new ship skins.

The ones that had interested me the most were the Merlin due to my flying of them on occasion and the Hyperion simply because I think it was the better of the BS's redone.

They are cheap enough on the Aurum front.



So in the store I bought 1 Hyperion change and a 10 run Merlin change. Yes I said "change".
I was disappointed in the fact that these were sold as BPC's rather then something that would be applied to the current ship.


Let me explain.

My Hyperion has barely been used but as I am a hoarder I keep things like 250 Million isk Battleships, especially ones that are rigged. The rigs on it were worth about 75 Million (T1), here is my problem, to get the new skin on the old hyperion I would have to repackage it, losing the rigs. I was not happy.
I know some people will snicker at the loss of 75 Million or "just" 3 rigs, but that's not me.
After about 10 minutes of thinking about it I repackaged the hyperion and used the bpc to make the new version. The 5 Merlin's took about he same time as the BS, 4 or 5 minutes "in production".

I should have seen/read this blog entry sooner to get some real details.

I'm disappointed that its not a case of applying the bpc, rather its a use of an in game mechanic that gives you a new ship... not a respray of an old one. 
So if you have a ship that you have been flying for years and want it to look like one of the new models you will have to essentially reprocess your old ship and get a new one.

This isn't ship reskinning.

Having a ship put into an Avatar-like editor IS ship skinning:
http://go-dl.eve-files.com/media/1202/20120209023127.jpg

I hop that this "early" test period makes CCP go ahead with a proper ship reskinning tool.

Atari....

On and off over the last "while" (decades), I have taken out and dusted off the old Atari 2600. It's been about 6 years since I last took a trip down memory lane with it. This time around I've been hampered by non working power supplies, crumbling cables and in general a degraded and fading system.
I originally got my first Atari 2600 Jr. from a Santa visit way back in the mid 80's, this system survived a lot including being drenched in water once. It received a fatal blow in the late 80's when some pins on the player 1 port got mangled and broke off when attempted to fix. About the same time a friend was selling his and I picked it up at a bargain price with some games.
I've held both consoles/cables and games in a box for long time.
Call me old fashioned and sentimental but emulated versions of the games are nothing when compared to taking the actual console, putting the same cartridges into it and playing it with the same joystick that was used that Christmas morning.
I was resigned to the fact that I may not play it again. I've looked up second hand sites and seen a lot on offer. There is a thriving online market for the console and games. People selling original or new versions of cables/joysticks etc. And I was tempted to buy and rejig my old version back to life but I was halted in my tracks by the flashback system! Pardon my french, but ho-lee-cwap!

So with the knowledge that I could get a new system that played the old games two things held me back from this new device. It's reviews were less than stellar with regard to the "wireless" joysticks and it was missing some games I loved to play.
Further research solved the joystick problem as I could hook up a wired controller via ports on the console, that meant I could use the old controller pictured at the top of this post or by a new version of it.
The games... bit of a bigger problem but this is why I've really held off buying.... the next version of the flashback... flashback 5... "may" have a cartridge port! 
There have been modded versions of the flashback 2 that have had a cartridge port installed but the next one may have one as standard.... I really hope it does... its as high on the wish list as is possible.
Lets see what the next 6 month's (year?) brings. I can wait ...... really I can...... honest :)

 

 

A new 90......

My gameplay in Wow has been very low key of late. A few low level dungeon runs, the usual farming 
(In doing so my druid maxed his cooking (first of the 90's to do so)).

 

And a few dailies here and there. 
Last night turned out to be very different.

The pre-purchase of the next expansion pack was listed on the launcher and peeked my interest the day before yesterday. Needless to say I think a lot of people in wow were interested.

I lasted about 24 hours before buying it last night. It was a bit too easy to buy.... 2 or 3 mouse clicks.... done and dusted.

Now to wait for Dec 20th and start the expansion proper lol.

I purchased the deluxe digital edition and also got the mount and pet, first time I've ever done that.
I was glad to see that the missus's account which is linked to my own was able to use the new mount as well. Save €10 and no need to get the deluxe version for her :)

I decided to choose between two character's among my alts that would use the new boosted to 90 feature/freebie, my rouge and my priest. In the end I decided to go for the rog.

Click the new option icon for the boost

Choose which character

Choose the spec

Last chance to reverse course

 

The new 90 and the green gear freebie look

 

Timeless Isles gear with a few transmog's to make it "better".

Once in game you will appear on the timeless isles, if you open your bags you will see that all your stuff is gone, but not to worry as the dev's have posted it all to you.

And given your character 4 Embersilk 22 slog bags.
I was lucky to have not used all the bank tabs on this character so I used his old bag's to fill those slots.

Although I've played and enjoyed the lower level rogue I've yet to really see what the 90 talents/abilities/glyphs and rotations are for assassination. 
A good RL friend has done this process and boosted a hunter so we are swapping info as my main is a hunter and his is a rogue. Happy co-incidence.  I'll prob only get to really dig into the rog 90 experience during the next weekend.

This is my 6th level 90, I've never had so many top end characters at once before. With the expansion out in late December I guess it won't be the last.