So it begins pt2.... Update 10 - Finale

Both Trials were decommissioned last night. Isk was used to buy some ships and modules. All modules, ships and other items were handed over to my "main alt".

We didn't end up doing anything else with the trials. It's been a bad week to try gaming together. That's they way the cookie crumbles. I'll try another trial in a week or so with a true purpose. This time around wasn't enough to convince herself of the Eve experience, it was all too much to get her head around. She knows a lot more than she did before. It's like this for a lot of people. Maybe if the starter experience is updated soon I'll persuade her to try it again so "see what's changed". Good thing she doesn't read my blog ;-p

A general Eve update....

Not much has been happening with my general Eve gaming.
The usual maintenance of my characters goes on, updating P.I. / Skills... etc.

I did get to spend some isk on a Navy Raven for my second main. I've wanted to have one on that character for some time. Not that it will be used much but it was at a good price and worth getting.

As always my null alt received more attention. I got to move in a lot more modules to fit out a lot more ships for my own use as well as a lot more bpc's to make ships for the local market to consume. Some sell like hot-cakes, others are stagnant. Over-all its a good earner.

I really like being able to mine and make the items and ships then sell them. Particularly as it all takes place within a few systems. Despite the number of people into industry and mining there is room for this little guy to butt in and make some profit.

To be handy and quick I used a t1 frig to bookmark the new ore spots for mining. Then on getting my retriever I did a warp to one at 10km forgetting the direction I was coming from. The angle of entry to the asteroids put me smack in the middle of 2. Yep I was being bounced around like table tennis ball. I was trying to angle and get out of their way unsuccessfully when fate intervened in the shape of 2 BS and 4 cruiser rats. They warped in at their optimal as the opening salvo took 2 thirds of my shields off. Panic and resignation kicked in, realising I was gonna loose this ship, a few salvo's and some frantic mouse clicking later I was exploded. I warped my pod to the station, hopped into a drake and headed back to kill the rats and get the salvage.
Warping back in there were no rats but I got my fit, everything dropped bar one module. A little justice in that at least.

So it begins pt2.... Update 9

What has happened are a few more missions in the epic arc. Unfortunately when doing a mission solo she lost her Catalyst in a combination of too much incoming fire, slight panic, attempts to react and attempts to recover. It ended in her exploding. her first lose. I traded over my Catalyst so she could go on while I went 10 jumps back to collect the Atron frig I had setup. Isk was tight so no new Cata for me just yet. We went on and cleared a few more missions.

The Eve trials have been the same since, very much on the back burner.
They only have about 4 day's left but I can't see them being used as RL circumstances wont' allow.

It's been RL circumstances that have curbed my gaming and is going to continue until the weekend.
So for these alts its the end of the road unless we get some game time together in the next two day's.

On an up note the ships and gear we have will be passed onto the next iteration of my trial alt.

8 years in wow....

About this time 8 years ago I took my first steps in wow as a level 1 Night Elf Druid. A friend I worked with at the time had been in wow for a while and had always spoken of it. As we were both gamers it was a natural subject as he would insist I join in on it.
Broadband was my problem in starting and as soon as I had upgraded to a "proper" line I got into wow.
Chatting about the games, viewing Thottbot to show me what was what... Fun times.
There may have been some stretches where I wasn't logging in yet had time paid and vise verse but overall it's been a long term "commitment". More than any other game I've played. Eve is getting to be a close second longevity wise.
Pity I'm no longer subscribed to celebrate the occasion in game. I'll be a month or two without it, then get back into it for the expansion, time will tell if it hooks me back in for the long haul.

Wow temporary halt....

I think I'm nearing the end of the road for my time in wow.

I've not been playing it for real in a long time. When I have been on I've found myself helping the missus level character’s but I've had no real goals to attain. Even getting the book for my warlock to get green fire wasn't a motivation! 

My wow account goes inactive tonight. I'll leave it that way until the expansion is out.

I don’t' think I'll get to see anything in the lead up to the expansion that will warrant me being on....

In the past I've wanted to be subscribed and when I did I didn't play, now I can play but don't want too... it's a viscous circle....
If the expansion is a grinding waste of time I'll say goodbye to wow altogether. The end of the year will see.

So it begins pt2.... Update 6, 7 & 8

We did some skill updates on both our trial's but did not undock. I went to my mains rather than do anything in the ninja loot arena.... Some nights are like that... That's two in a row.... now three....

Competition on the internet spaceship scene....

I've been playing eve for years now with no sign of stopping, maybe some slowing... but no stopping. Before that there were a lot of single player spaceship sims/games that I've played over the years such as the wing commander series, privateer 2 and Freespace games.
Once I start in on a game that I like or a series of games it's hard for me to unlike it. So for me it will take a lot to stop me from playing Eve.
Competition between game makers and their creations is a good thing, it makes them strive harder to do better in both releasing a more polished game and trying to keep that game up to date once it is released so they can stay competitive.

Although my main internet spaceship game is Eve Online I am tempted by the promise of Star Citizen, it's creator has defined the space game, having it go online keeping his ideals as a kickstarter is a great thing. The game itself has so much potential it's crazy. It's got a hardcore following already that will see it keep it's head and become a great game. It might be the Eve killer for me or even worse I may end up with both!

In my usual browsing of the interwebs there are three links well worth a read regarding these games.

Star Citizen from an Eve perspective:
http://sandciderandspaceships.blogspot.ie/2014/09/star-citizen-threat.html

Star Citizen perspective from an longtime Eve player:
http://mabricksmumblings.com/2014/09/15/arena-commander-v0-9-yowzah/

And a good general overview of the current compeditors in the realm of internet spaceships:
http://freebooted.blogspot.ie/2014/09/begun-clone-wars-have-eves-niche-is.html


Besides Star Citizen I've been keeping an eye on No Man's Sky and  Limit Theory.
After reading Freebooted I'll have to keep an eye on Seldon Crisis, Transverse and Dual Universe.

Exciting times ahead.

Wow raid entries...... funny from the net......

So it begins pt2.... Update 5

Day's 6 to 9


There isn't much that has changed. At this time my other half has finished her career agents. She has purchased the rest of the skill books that she needs and is busy skilling them up.
With about 2 weeks of trial time left the epic arc for the Sisters of Eve is now in the crosshairs.

While helping her out with the aspects of the game as we go it does show how quickly I can get through the "starting area" and career agents. It's the same in every game, until you know how to get around and understand the game you will be slower, it takes time.
Eve's tutorials and career agents do not lend themselves well to it.
She's asked me to "look at this", "how do I do this" and "where do I go now" a lot, naturally. Even I have been caught out a few times with how the game works trying to explain things. That type of thing doesn't give a good impression of Eve to the new, really genuine starters to Eve. Like the agent conversation not updating properly to recognise that you have item X in station Y. I've found that I open a new convo with an agent to see this without even thinking about it, subconscious workaround.

My idea of equating wow practises to something similar in Eve has unsurprisingly failed, mining asteroids does not in any way shape of form seem to compete with a female goblin mining an ore node all the while delicately holding a pick axe between her index and thumb with her little finger in the air.
What was I thinking!

I've recently updated Star Trek Online and logged into it for a moment, in that moment it showed me a conversation that was better than any current tutorial in Eve. It opened a com link to my character showing the mission giver, having him talk through what needed to be done. Even leaving out the moving head, voice acting is not to be under-rated. The older Eve Aura voice tutorials should be brought back, and edited to be more like an engaging conversation. They are one thing I really missed between my original starting trials when I was first getting into the game.

I've said before that it took three tries to get into the game myself. I'm sure my other half considers Eve to be my game alone. She can't see herself continuing after the trial.
She is getting some insight into what I've been doing (or obsessing?!? about) for years.
I think I've exploited her curiosity. Good timing!
The future may hold another trial. She has some insight and can be quicker off the bat to get into it in another trial. Maybe her second or third time will be the one, only time will tell.


Otherwise I've been doing things on my null alt with mining and production....

Ready.... Steady.... Mine!!!!

A replacement in the making..... No I didn't lose one.... Just being prepared....

So it begins pt2.... Update 3 & 4

Day 4
The night started with the usual rounds of PI/skill updates for me before moving onto the trial alt #2. This worked out as my other half had logged onto her trial at about the same time.
We finished off the rest of her military agent missions, visited the main trade hub and picked up some modules, chatting about fittings a little as we went.
Besides a bit of skill book buying and learning there wasn't that much else done. It was a light enough night.

I got to take my alt and scan out a BS in a mission, warp in with my salvage ship and looted and salvaged a few mill worth. That replenished the coffers.

 

Day 5

Day 5 only saw minor game time for her, skill updates and general station spinning for a little bit.
I was similar, taking the opportunity to mine on my null rather then use the trial alt#2.

By the time the system became "unsafe" to mine in I relogged as trial alt #2 and tried to scan down a mission again. No so much luck. I think I'm running into the same problem as the first alt had. Better scan skills = not being able to scan people down any better. In fact it seems to be a lot worse. I tried it for a bit but tiredness at 2 a.m. won out.

Shiny Ship collection....

I'd not consider myself wealthy, in Eve terms that varies from person to person and each individuals situation, but that is skewed when you read some blogs and try to compare yourself.
I have isk, I've worked for some of it, I've plexed some of it and more I've gotten from other in game activities. I'm not a cheapskate but I don't throw away isk either.
I do spend it on ships and like most enthusiasts that can afford a garage or display with a row of nice shiny items I have a lot of nice shiny ships.
Some are bought specifically for my display, others were purchased for intended space going but were never used (such as some faction ships). Others are there purely for the reason they are expensive and rare.
Most people in Eve would scoff at this as a waste of perfectly good combat ships and bemoan the waste of their explosive potential.
Although you don't see a lot of it in Eve I'm reminded of Wow where you see people sitting on their rare mounts outside the banks and auction houses or other busy area's so they can show off to others at how great they are.
I've no ego to sooth or bruise regarding this, the ships are there for me to eye. My own personal display. Anyway if you were in a nice shiny ship and sat at the Jita undock you'd be very likely exploded in short order to grace your rare ship on another persons killmail.

Some ships I keep on some characters if they receive them, CCP gifts etc but my first character has THE collection. I've recently spent some Aur and Isk to update this boxed fleet. It's not all the special or rare ships I have but it's the bulk of them.
I have this blog, out of interest and something to put on it I can show off these ships through screenshots. I dont' get any feedback on my blog so it's not about Ego, or maybe it is, either way it's anonymous self promotion to an interest group, people still read some entries.....

Here are the ships:

Realistic Mario....

My Eve character overview....

Both my mains are still busy training up, my primary alt has about a month of training time left, all three are progressing and are the essence of super fluffy hi-sec carebearishness. They also form the core of what I would call "my game". Happy to potter along as they are, the future holds faction epic arcs when time allows or my better judgement kicks in and stops me from ruining other faction standings.

My Minmatar alt has finished training, and is preped for some more hi-sec missions in the new T3, I will wait for a mate to get back into the game to mission and generate some isk with. If that's not likely to happen then I'll move on to doing exploration.

My null alt has 3 months now extended to 4 month's of skills to do (I reworked that skill list in EveHQ), he will progress and finish off the training, continuing to mine, produce and do PI for isk generation. All the while building up ships and gear so once his training is done I'll jump his "good" clone back to hi-sec and start to do a lot of pvp in a clean clone.

The trial alt #2 is in full swing as my other posts have said. With luck I'll see how that goes and maybe do another after it or start in on the 60 day trial. Time will tell.

So it begins pt2.... Update 2

Day 3 turned out to be a log in and update the skill queue kind of night.
There was a quick new skills check, a brief look at what the next mission was. General checking out of some settings, ships and module/fittings.
I did a small intro to show her info on ships and modules, and the dont' mix gun types as well as the don't duel tank unwritten rule.
There was some checking on market "things" and I talked about the main trade hub for the faction. She got a GM convo who was asking how things were going, it's a nice touch for a game.
She was also lucky to get a random 1 Mill isk donation. I dont' know if the GM and the random isk donation are related but they happened around the same time and she was very happy. All in all a good night.

Plans are for her to finish off the career agents and then both of us to move onto the Epic arc. I might slip in some ninja salvaging while I wait.

That first trial alt experiance....

Linked here for convenience.

So it begins.....

So it begins..... 2

So it begins..... 3

So it begins..... 4

So it begins..... 5

So it begins..... 6

So it begins..... 7

So it begins..... Update 8

So it begins..... Update 9

So it begins..... Update 10

So it begins..... Update 11

So it begins..... Update 12 - Finale

Eve Weekend.... So it begins pt2.... The Intro

I've been doing the rounds of the usual Eve housekeeping over the weekend, PI, skills and some ship/gear clearing and sorting.

My Null alt has been doing the same and updating market orders. His time in null is still being hampered by the large amount of reds and neuts in systems. The alliance despite it's pvp nature could only manage token resistance and a half arsed mail sayin
g go mine/rat in other systems not experiencing so much "attention". Charming.
I'll not be reseating myself. I've got PI chains that I'll not be able to shift. I'll wait things out (again) and get the PI done when I can.
 
Most of my Eve time was taken up with a new trial alt. And my wife created her's! I was surprised. Very surprised.
Her mmo background, less the facebook games is Wow, Rift some Guild Wars 2 and more Wow. Did I mention Wow. Yea she is a big Wow'er.
The transition from Wow to Eve was an interesting one. Her desire to play Eve was not borne of a lust to see internet spaceships, but because I wanted her to "try it out", so perhaps a little curiosity mixed with a bit of "better do it to shut him up about it".

I dont' think that Eve itself will have any great draw on her playing or maintaining an interest in the game. Wow has such an accessible gravitational pull I'd be surprised if she play's past a week. I'd be exceptionally surprised if she played it on her own.

Day one was last Saturday, late afternoon after a break from a wow session she tried it, she clicked the link I had sent a while ago for a 21 day trial. we both created a character at the same time.
She liked the character creation screen a lot, the features and the look and feel were a great start to the Eve introduction. As was the starting movie, heavy in content and idea's but a good start.
Her pc is not a mean gaming beast and it took a moment to load the game, while waiting we talked about the captains quarter's, the button for hanger was clicked and the quarter's were never seen. Pity as I'd say if she saw her character walk about her quarter's it would have drawn her in more. I'd say a lot of people are like that. I do hope the future holds an extension to the "walking in stations" mode.
We went through the Aura starter missions. The large amount of text on screen for the help/explanation's was quickly ignored or clicked through without reading in favour of as she put it "you can tell me what to do", so I did. This lead to me trying to not use words and phrasing that are common to any Eve player, comical on my part, frustrating on hers when I did start to get "technical", especially while in npc combat where there was a sense of urgency even with no imminent danger.

From there we did the first 5 of the combat career agent. Progression and learning as she went was good.  In my view the biggest problem for her was the concept of only using the mouse and a few keys on the keyboard. I could see her hand instinctively float over the WASD keys. I also found my bad practise's in eve highlighted to me even more so now. I am a mouse clicker. I rarely use the F keys or shortcut keys. I "may" need to do better but this old dog and that trick is a hard thing to change.

Day two on Sunday evening saw no real recap, just a few words to remind what to do. Some more career agent missions were done. The military agent was completed on her own and I suggested the business agent next, which she also started into and completed. I think she enjoyed those missions better then the pure combat. She saw and learned more about what happens in Eve and gained more isk, loot, skill books and did a lot more skill queue planning.

The next stage is to see how the week goes and see how she gets on with the other agents. I'm sure she will be fine but if there is no real hook then it wont' keep her past the free 21 day's dabble.
I've been pleasantly surprised so far. She knows the next step after the career agents is a thing called the Sisters of Eve Epic arc.  I'll team up with her to get through that and try to share knowledge and fun as much possible.

Other than that all I can do is try to point her towards the area's of eve that are similar to area's in Wow. She likes the auction house, I'll introduce her to the market properly in Eve. She likes to gather items and use them, salvage, loot and asteroids beware.
The big hook would be to see if there is an active corp that she can get into that is like her own in Wow, that will not be easy. If that were to happen I'd take my new trial alt and ruin a players day by being a ninja looter MTU destroying wad. Let the good times roll. 

I might see if she will put a few typed words together and I'll share them here.....

Faction warfare homework....

 
Information online about Eve is years old. With a game that's been out over 10 years it's not surprising that there's a lot of outdated information on the web.
Some information can be read and although old is not outdated, to know the difference you have to know something about the subject. It's a catch 22 situation. I've had to double check the dates on posts and blogs.


In looking to get an alt/long term trial into Faction Warfare I've been searching for information.
Some say the best way to learn is by doing and while I agree I also like to have some homework done before jumping headlong into something. I'll share that reading here.
 
The best relevant reading I've found are in these links:

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Factional_Warfare 



http://www.gamerchick.net/2013/01/the-beginners-guide-to-faction-war.html


http://sandciderandspaceships.blogspot.ie/2013/08/faction-war-guide-2013.html
http://sandciderandspaceships.blogspot.ie/2012/07/the-ridiculously-quick-faction-war-guide.html



http://www.factionwarfare.com/guides/



More general information with these links.


http://www.extra-vehicular.org/2013/02/faction-warfare-pvp-for-great-profit.html

http://www.gamerchick.net/2012/05/7-thing-you-believe-about-faction-war.html

http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1xf86w/fits_for_new_players_looking_to_get_into_faction/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1c0amm/request_factional_warfare_for_dummies/

Blast from the past.... Commodore Format

I have a thing for old retro systems. I still have my original Atari 2600, C64 etc. not to mention old pc's, guess I'm a tech hoarder.

I was late to the C64 scene. While others were well into their Amiga and Atari ST phases, the C64 still held me in good stead.

An internet search later and I saw that Commodore Format issues in software form are free online.

Eve in the last week.....

Eve Online saw me using my second main to grind away on SOE level 4 missions.
Finally getting that security statues to 5.0. Which was done faster than I thought it would have been.

I spent a lot more time micromanaging my characters assets and cleaning up ships fits and collecting gear that was not needed or likely won't be used. More work in this area is needed. It always seems to be so.

Long term skill plans on characters are all coming together. For the first time in a long while I'm getting to be "done" with some characters and skills. One alt is within days of finishing, another is a month and another is 3 month's. Like a sliding scale.

I didn't get to create another alt but I did float the idea of my wife doing a trail with me. She wasn't opposed to the idea but not blown away by it either, will see how that pans out. Either way my plans for disposable alts in eve are ongoing. I hope that this weekend will see some wife on Eve action time.

I thought about a change for my null alt, maybe a break for a month. I might grind soe rep and get an soe frig for him. All my other mains and alts have ground soe missions to death. Something to be different lol. Might get a use for that raven in doing it on the null alt.I've already invested some null earnings into hi-sec assets. Something he has never really had before.

In looking up his 3 month plan on EveHQ I was looking at the wrong charecter within eve and making changes to the plan that will all need to be changed again. Serves me right for doing it half asleep.

While trying to get some mining done, with a red in system that had been idle for hours. He suddenly appeared active again. I should know better but I wanted that ore....

I got away thankfully due to my unmanly fitted warp stab.

 

The spice must flow.........

The last week....

The last week has passed like the blink of an eye.

Not much to say about the last week in gaming, my usual games were played but not to any great extent other than the always faithful Eve Online.

BF 4 saw a few matches here and there and had the usual ups and downs of a sniper. I've reverted to a mid range rifle. The Recon version does not seem to be my cup of tea.

Wow saw me help yet another of my wife's characters get to 90. I think I need some of that boosting on an alt or two.

I've thought about getting the Limited Edition of Destiny when it's out but my enthusiasm was curbed when I was told that the 360 version has no limited edition. I'll wait a while before picking up a copy if I do at all.