Happy Christmas!

Eve Update....

The new release system for Eve patch's/expansions seems to be very quick, but maybe I'm a slow gamer. Not that I'm against the changes they have all been good so far. I like stability.
Fast changes remind me of a lot of comments I've seen on reddit, forums and blogs where new players ask "is it too late to start playing Eve". Changes every 6 weeks is a lot of changes. A lot to keep on top of if you were a casual gamer that doesn't read any dev blogs or much else online. Maybe ignorance is bliss. Maybe CCP needs to be wary of chasing off players that think they can't keep up with the older players. Yes it's been said in those forums and blogs that new players can be better than veterans if they specialise. I think that adds to the pressure if your starting out. I had to laugh when I read this. Eve takes time, getting your character up to speed to do somethings well takes time. I was glad to see that CCP Seagull recognised that some people joining the game could be disappointed when expecting to hop into the biggest ships in the game straight away. Star citizen may have an upper hand with from that angle. Some people in Eve get these response's.

My Eve gaming has been very mundane. It seems to be a trend that continues.

All characters are doing PI now. 

I have 4 characters doing POS blueprint original material and time effeminacy research. Also making copies of those researched blueprints. This should be finally done in about 2 weeks, I think I have about 3 weeks of POS fuel left so that's should time well. 

The last release removed clone grades, this freed my alts to learn more at only the cost of training time. I have bought some plex to train a number of them. I'm sure I'm not the only one to do that.
The Chimbo gift of 20 day's alt training has added nicely to this.
With the 20 free days and about 2 month's of training on each of my alts, Main alt, Minmatar alt and Amarr alt's will be greatly expanded.
All of them have skills planned that generally add to the "basic" skills that open up more skills. Increasing their planetary interaction / passive money making abilities is also on the cards.
My main alt is enjoying some much needed upgrading across the board, mainly getting into some more T2 ships and weapon systems.
My Minmatar Alt is doing something similar but narrowed to the Minmatar line of ships/weapon systems. Rather than having those skills diluted into other skill/faction branches I'm enjoying having a more "pure" direction. Mainly based around the Minmatar BS and T3 ships, weapons and supporting skills to help.
My Amarr alt is being more "well rounded", not hard for a 1million skill point character. Being the alt with the lowest number of skill points this alt has a lot of basics to cover. Originally I had intended to only have this alt in a navy frig with T2 mods and weapons but this round of training into new skills is seeing T2 frigs, T1 destroyers, and T1 BC's being skilled into (all Amarr based). Some T1 weapons for the cruisers and BC's being done but nothing major. Time is being mainly poured into this alt becoming a great hauler. I was looking into getting a Providence but the cost and the limited usage I'd get out of it were not marrying up in my head. So T2 Haulers became the goal.
The new shiny models for the Amarr seem to eb adding to the "magic" of this alt. I really like the new models and the return of the shiny ships.

So with the POS activity and lots of training on alts including the normal training on my 2 mains has meant a lot of "housekeeping". I've not been running missions or doing much else hi-sec carebearing yet game time is vanishing in the blink of an eye.

My Nullsec alt has been the only character to be "doing" things. PI, mining, production, market seeding/maintaining and when there are no war-dec's against the alliance I've been doing more level 4 SOE missions.  I'm not sure I can call this character an alt as I've been mianly on this character rather than any other. This is compounded by the character being on it's own account/login and has another 5 month's of game time to skill up with. It should be transferred to one of my main accounts once that time is up.... just depends on what I talk myself into when that time is near.... " just another month of training ".

I have been mulling over getting some alts into other corp's and interacting with others in the player base. You'd think I'd be doing that on my null alt but besides avoiding reds that character has little interaction with alliance or corp "mates". Join a fleet up for mining, free boosts nothing else needed. Report intel... action and counter action it's all less than being acquaintances. I really need to be on comms and get into the pvp end to be truly "interactive" with null players. We'll see. Corp chat may as well be dead, after a year in the corp I only just found out that 60% of the players are the same person.

My current existence within Eve is hardly akin to the latest Eve trailer, but I guess that what I do could hardly inspire a great trailer. That all being said there is a definite PVP based player looking down the nose at carebears and indy people. That gets annoying.

Dust 514.... my new experiance.

I'm going to recap on some thought and write about my new Dust 514 experience so it's gonna be a long waffle....

It's been a long time since I've played an online first person shooter with a mouse and keyboard. The last time was when I was into Quake and Unreal Tournament in there various forms some years ago. Nostalgia had brought them back to be reinstalled over time but I was not really back to them online. The only online shooters I've played recently have been on the Xbox 360, CoD and BF being the main two. I have to say that BF beats CoD in my view, due to it having more variables to increase it's "realism"  complexity. 
So when CCP said they were bringing out an FPS in the Eve universe I was of course interested. The fact that there were some goodies in the Eve collectors edition that I could use for Dust 514 added to the mix.
About 8 month's or so ago I bought a cheap PS3 on sale and used some vouchers that helped to lessen the cost. The game is free after all so I started to check what it was all about.
Over the course of those 8 month's I've blogged about that roller coaster ride.

These are the main blog posts where I waffled my lil cotton socks off:

http://acasualcarebear.blogspot.ie/2014/04/dust-514.html

http://acasualcarebear.blogspot.ie/2014/04/dust-514-started.html

http://acasualcarebear.blogspot.ie/2014/04/dust-in-my-eye.html

http://acasualcarebear.blogspot.ie/2014/04/dust-to-dust.html

http://acasualcarebear.blogspot.ie/2014/07/dust-revisited.html

http://acasualcarebear.blogspot.ie/2014/11/return-to-dust.html

http://acasualcarebear.blogspot.ie/2014/11/more-dust.html

http://acasualcarebear.blogspot.ie/2014/12/dust-its-alive.html

I've reread some of those posts and mainly about what I had thought at the time. It has been a roller coaster. The highs and lows of CCP showing how unhelpful and insightful it can be towards itself and it's customers. The fanfest fiasco and it's wake showing lessons that were learnt and ignored. I'd like to say that CCP is well on the right track to making Dust 514 the game it should have started out as. Yet I've constantly got that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
That's the biggest thing CCP has done to my consideration of the game. I like the game. I like it's idea's, it may have taken a long time to get to where it is now and it may be the precursor to a PC version. BUT there is that little "thing" in my head that says dont' invest, dont' buy into it, dont' get AURUM currency because CCP's are gonna screw it up in some way shape of form and in that moment I'm gonna be disappointed. It boiled down to that. So yes, a very big, long roller coaster.

Anyway, enough of my "considerations" of the game and onto my newest Dust 514 experiences.
My new experiences of the game have been great. The best way to describe these experiences is to say that it hasn't been the game or any changes since it's last update. It's nothing CCP has done. I've updated the way I use the PS3. Visual output and control method changes. That's a PC monitor and keyboard'n'mouse instead of a 32" tv and gamepad. Ho-Lee-Hell has it made a massive difference.
I bought a PS3/Wii to VGA cable. I had other spare components that made the connection to an LCD screen with speakers no hassle. I added a standard usb keyboard and mouse to the ps3 and what a difference. Did I say they made a difference..... Night and Day!

The cable is this one. The other bits I needed were from a local shop here and here.

Connecting the screen was finicky from the PS3 settings.
I needed to have the screen and new cable connected ans setup/powered while keep the PS3 connected to a TV, make the changes in the PS3's settings ensuring it was changed to use the D VGA out, scroll right to get to the next option letting it go to a black screen (because the monitor wasn't connected), unplug the video cable from the PS3 and plug in the new cable from the monitor and finish the settings change process.
Finicky.
No wonder people would just hook up the PS3 expect it to work straight away... see a black screen and say it doesn't work.
At least with the Xbox360 it was automatic and detected the new screen.
Once the PS3 was on the new screen and it all worked and sounded ok I was happy.
So I powered everything off and tidied up before setting up the PS3 in it's new home (my desk beside the 360). I can see myself buying some sort of vga switchbox with 3.5mm audio jack.... This looks interesting.... Hmmm I'm not an AV geek .... honest!

All in all I now had a PS3 on a monitor that gave it a sharper image, it was no longer letter boxed in game and the text and images were all properly shaped and no longer had any blurred effects. The addition of a standard keyboard and mouse made the control of the game precise and more intuitive than I though it would be. I will never use the joypad on Dust 514 again. Kudos to them on the mouse/keyboard integration on Dust 514.

The first match I played using my new setup scored me more kills than all my previous matches to date combined. The game is more accessible and more enjoyable. It feels like a new game. I can see myself getting into this game more. I think I've made the right changes to the hardware at the right time to make the most of the coming changes and updates to Dust514. I think there is more to come and a lot more enjoyment to be had.
The addition of daily "missions" with rewards you can work towards is by far teh best thing in game tht will make you say "one more game" to see if you can get the reward you've 90% progress on already just from playing.

EVE Online: Rhea Release Feature Tour

21 Day FREE Trial Here!

Eve Update....

Before I waffle on about the changes in the latest release for Eve Online I'm gonna say a "few" words on what's been happening with my general gaming within Eve.

My Null alt has been the main character of my game-play. So mining, production, marketing and running from reds has been happening a lot.
While mining, even in a large fleet you can get caught out, a large group of reds entered system scanned out the fleet and warped to me, scramming my warp drive.
My lack of awareness was due to me playing BF4 at the same time. 
Usually I'd have warped to station when intel reported them a system away. I was aligned but a good distance away from the main group while mining so I was an easy target. Anyway there I was, two reds, both in Crow's had be scrammed. One I could deal with by warping away due to the my ship having one warp core stab but two was a no no... 
While I was amongst the asteroids and already aligned to a safe POS spot being scrammed was a "concern" and I set full steam ahead, thankfully I was not webbed. After about 30 seconds the asteroids had bumped one of the crow's far enough away from their orbit that he lost the lock of the scram and I was able to warp to safety.... a triumphant shout, fist in the air and a wave of relief was in order. I got to warp away with just under 50% shields, not bad.

Thank you mistress luck!

Luck was not on my side a few day's after. As I was warping home after leaving off some cargo.
I jumped into the second last system was in mid warp to the last stargate in my route only to have 4 reds appear and me to arrive in the middle of them. 
They jumped the gate straight after me and waited out the cloak timer. Hammering the warp key did nothing for the ship as expected it blew fast, unfortunately the pod was right behind it.
The real pity was I had only upgraded the clone to a full set of  +4 implants a few days previously. Time for a new set. again.

Marketing what I've made is a good little earner. It's good to have a source of isk coming in that has already been worked for. Some high volume items at a cheap price. One of two items at a hefty price. It's a good balancing act. The market can be finicky but some items sell as a constant. I've leaned a lot and hope to refine that even more. Wars are both a helper and a hindrance. I may not have proved myself to the corp/alliance in pvp but I like to think that the ships, guns and ammo I sell help the cause. Truth be told my sell orders can be fulfilled by both sides, a true arms dealer isn't picky once the isk is coming in.

 

My mains and alt's have all been busy with training and P.I.

In going through my main's items I came across all the POS modules/fuel he had. I decided to put the POS back up.

A while ago I had bought a lot of new BPO's so I decided to research the material and time efficiency on them as well as make copies to sell. With the removal of the slots form industry I've been able to just use two labs to do the jobs.  I've never used the Industry crew's and am glad they will be removed. That does not bode well for ship crew's, tho I think the future holds more cosmetic functions for their future if they are ever implemented.

The POS has been up for about a month now. At the moment it's running on the fuel that had been pre-purchased and stored with the modules. This should last another month. I think it should see me through. I hope I wont' need any more fuel for the POS. The cost of the fuel is almost a third more than the last time I had to buy some. Seeing the cost of a month's worth of fuel is a killer.

In going through my mains hangers I folded up shop in a station I used to use as a main mission hub way back in my earlier day's. Tis funny what you find.

Other than the POS the mains have run some missions and done general hi-sec "stuffs".
As part of their training both mains and my main alt got to finish off the Mining Frigate skill to level 5, I got to purchase and fit out some Prospects for them.

They are a really cool ship and I think I'll have to get my null alt into one sooner than I had planned.


With the new expansion/release the rouge drones have been sighted everywhere. As I've been mainly on my null alt (pun pun). I've seen them a lot.... everywhere.... at:

Stargates

Stations

Customs Offices

Scanning my Drones

More Stargates

I like that there is a moving narrative with in Eve and it's happening to everybody. If only they dropped loot and gave more than metal scraps when salvaged.

A few people have commented on this from their experiences on the test server, like this video.
However I like that JohnnyPew has again come up trumps and given a great walkthrough of the new sites. 

The CCP Winter seasonal star (Christmas star), is back and viewable from everywhere in New Eden. Another nice touch. Makes me wonder what they will be giving away as presents this year.

One of the new things in the expansion that caught my eye so far today have been the sheer awesomeness of the new ship rendering.
Some people have been moaning about some of the recolouring of pirate models but for me the ships are so much more sexy it's worth a little grumble from a few.

New Crow skin

New Gnosis skin

AND the Amarr ships have all got their shiny back!!!!

They have done really great work and with more on the way it's a great thing for Eve.

 
Another thing I am excited about is the new pop out version of the star map! It is a great new vision and a great replacement for the old version. It needs a lot of work but it's the right direction to go.

New Eden

Constellation view

Zoomed out System View

The full patch notes are here.

 

I will finish up this overly long post with a vid I really really like. It's just out and it's a feature promo for the expansion. Well worth a look. CCP are getting better at these.

Eve online, clones, expansion and what to do....

If it's one thing that CCP does well with Eve is that they are doing a lot to communicate well with Eve's players. Full details about the clone changes are in this link.

An In-Development: Features of EVE Online's Rhea Release info vid was also released.

Part of the ongoing player experience boost or should I say drive is a fan made "what to do in Eve" video. I wanted to link it again as I think it's really good.

That video reminded me to look-up this image that also helps in the what to do department. It's also reminded me of how much I still haven't tried within Eve. The clone changes will help with that.

Save image to view in readable form....

Dust.... It's alive!

I've been really surprised by Dust 514/CCP, far from shelving Dust 514 after the fanfest farce it seems that they have been doing things in the long term department to plan and change the game for the better. the Uprising 1.9 release was a massive boost. Now this dev blog for the next update/expansion also shows insight into the planning and future of the game. They are getting a roadmap together. About time! 

Again I admit I've only played a match or two in the last while. But since I hooked up a mouse and keyboard to the PS3 it's changed the gameplay dramatically.
Much better control = much better gameplay experience.
Add that to the changes they have made in 1.9 and are going to make in 1.10 = a better gameplay experience.
I'm looking forward to seeing the new Dust 514 in the upcoming 1.10 release on the 9th of December.
I might even be tempted to play sooner with the current week of accelerated LP.

Funny....

There is something extremely "funny" about listening to some tunes on christmasfm.com while playing Battlefield 4....... such a contrast with happy seasonal jolly songs and the vengeful killing of internet people in the face with rapid bursts of high velocity death dealing bullet intensity.... 

Yet more Eve online....

Still lots of things being talked about with Eve, more in a positive way than anything else. It's still good to see.

Crossing Zebra's 101 has it's own vid site http://eve101.com/. The latest vid's are about drone use and a brief run down on player organisations with the game.
The main Crossing Zebra's site has a great intro article on Faction Warfare. Well worth a read.


CCP has also brought out a new dev blog to highlight the resources available to new pilot's.
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/rookie-resources/ which has very handy information. 

This blog is an interesting read about player retention and in game "organisational happenings".


Evehermit has a great response to another bloger's post, I won't go into detail here, what Evehermit says is a reflection of how I feel about the game and the original post. Have a read.

I'll have to get some time to write up my own happenings in Eve......