Friday 27 March 2015

The Scope: Drifter Activity Intensifies


My Eve Update....

Not much has been happening for me within Eve at the moment. Not much that I can waffle on about anyway. I think I've been doing more in Dust with Eve open on the side rather than the other way round which I feel should be the way.

My Null alt has been checking his market orders and only done enough mining to update the items that are selling. These include some T1 weapons and modules, haulers, probes (scan and combat), and some items like large containers. It's been a massive scale back after the market "crash" a few weeks ago. But the income from it is ongoing. It is a more competitive market and has needed more attention of late. This lats PI is the best earner, at a guess it would be about 100 Million a week. If I was meticulous about the PI and the market I'm sure I would make a lot more.  I've not done the mining for ore to sell as ore and the ratting has been non existent but both are options should circumstances change.  A lot of war dec's has meant that there has been zero hi sec activities so no PVE or testing of my new Tengu that is really my old Tengu at this stage.
PVP with this character has also been on my mind but I'd like to get his current "batch" of training our of the way, that's more to do with my not wanting to "waste" training time rather than anything I'm looking to skill into or use.


Both of my Hi-sec carebear main's have been ship spinning, maintaining their PI/data-core farming and micromanaging hangers and ships.
In fact that has been the fate of my Hi-sec alt as well. I have been looking into getting into the WH site of things with him but everything I've been looking into corp wise has lead to a larger commitment than I could do as a casual gamer. All others that are looking for less commitment only give very flaky information and I've heard too many stories from friends about being awoxed especially when corps can choose to have friendly fire be illegal and don't. Maybe that's just my paranoia kicking in.


My Amarrian alt is still skilling up in an SP explosion that has seen that alt vary so far off course then just being a trader and hauler. She also just received a T1 Apoc battleship from my main main, the skills to fit it, mainly the T2 weapons are still to be trained into so that's six month's away. Again another thing that is "ongoing". 
 

A while ago I decided to stick with hauling and courier contracts using an Impel and a Prorator with this alt rather than get a Providence, but to quote a phrase, picking have been slim. so business has been bad.

Rounding up the alt list is my Minmatar alt. Again another hi-sec carebear but this time based around the minmatar faction. Not that I'm a role player but like my Amarrian alt, this alt is faction specific. Just because.
I decided to setup this alt to be able to farm datacores. To do this with a level 4 datacore agent I needed the faction/corp/agent standing for this alt to be at 5.0. Of those options (faction/corp/agent) the best standing was from faction. This allowed me to skip the level 1 and 2 agents and just straight to farming standing with level 3 agents for the corp that has the agent that will supply the datacores. So off I went with a Cyclone and started the grind. These level 3's are easy to do as they have none of the complexity of the level 4's, usually it's easy to warp into the mission, kill the mission objective while tanking the incoming dps, warp out and handin the mission. Easy stuff.


As a hi-sec carebear I'm adverse to loosing standings. Even if that faction is the enemy of my alts faction. So when I got a mission to go kill some Amarrian faction npc's I declined the mission. The next mission that the agent gave was The blockade. I remember this mission vaguely from doing it at level 4 levels. I kind of remembered it as being a high dps, lots of rats kind of vague mission that was harder to do then was worth. So all in all I decided that taking my alts Loki instead of the battlecruiser.  The Loki with this alt has been able to tank level 4's with all modules on and be cap stable. It's been a brick in level 4's.Accepting the mission, off I went to get ride of this mission and move on to get more standing.
My lack if remembering the level 4 version of this mission and my lack of looking things up should have been more of a warning to me.
By this time in reading you've probably guessed it but I lost the Loki... yeap, the ultimate carebear shame. I lost a Loki in a level 3.
I started off the mission and all was going well, I was killing the smallest ships first. The small ships were obviously the triggers as when I killed them more npc's would appear. No problem as I was killing and tanking it with no problem. About the 4th wave of reinforcements came but instead of being the same 80km away reinforcement this new wave landed 4kmn from me. DPS hit me hard. I was obviously at their optimal as the first of their volley's took my shields. I aligned to be on the safe side but before I could warp off I was siting in my pod. Ho-Lee-Cow. wtf.


I know the changes to the Loki and other T3's were done but I seemed to be tanking and acting normal in this mission... plus its "only" a level 3...... I took the loss in stride and warped out and got a battleship to over compensate and finished off the mission. That's not to say that I didnt' mull the thought to maybe submit a ticket to see if there was something that happened that could explain why it didnt' warp in time... but I didn't.... even writing this I'm rethinking should I....


After the mission handin I spent the alt's isk to replace the Loki into an updated and enhanced version of it. I've not done any more mission yet but I'll go back to the cyclone and see how things go. This alt is broke in the isk sense, gonna be a lot of PI and missions to make that isk back... Good thing I started the process already.

Monday 23 March 2015

Fanfest over... Good things coming....

So with Fanfest over there is a lot to digest on the Eve Online front.
Overviews of both Day 2 and Day 3 are interesting  There's a lot to look forward to seeing realised in game.


I am particularly looking forward to the structure changes, the full details are here. I'm glad I took down and sold my POS when I did.

Of the new effects coming I really like the look of these two.

POS Shield

Ship Explosion
There are lots more that can be seen here.



The new scope video adds to the mix:



There has been a lot of chatter about Pandemic Legion pushing into Brave Newbies space and the sound cloud clips that have surfaced have been interesting.
Brave-middle-management-meltdown

Brave-evacuation-underway



Friday 20 March 2015

Fanfest 2015 - Day 1 in review from CCP

http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/fanfest-2015-day-1-in-review/


DUST 514 - Collected Learnings


Eve Online Update....

I've had this in draft's for a while now but I'm only getting to write it up and flesh it out now. With luck I'll finish this post and write up a decent view of what I'm doing in Eve with my characters tomorrow. It's late now so I'll see how much I get to waffle and what I get to remove from this.

CSM voting has been completed and I'm glad to say that I got to vote my selection with all my accounts. And the results given in the fanfest keynote presentation today were a win for my top pick.


The scope news spots are continuing and are great to watch.









I really, really enjoy them.

The latest video to carry the story forward is from fanfest and is a real teaser.

 
 Another major part of fanfest's presentations today was the Eve Valkyrie video.


Eve Valkyrie looks like it will be a big title on PC and PS4, I'll be very much staying with it on PC and will look forward to it.
Part of me can't help but think back to when video's like this were shown about Dust514 but I think that CCP had well learnt it's lesson. Indeed Dust 514 may not have had much "air" time or mention at all in the live feeds but Dust is listed on the Fanfest scedule. Listed along the lines of the playerbase and "learning" from the experience. There does not seem to be any current info on what they are doing with the game and where it's future is going.
Dust would have so much more and the community would be so much more forgiving if CCP was clearer on details, for fanfest I'd have expected more. Dust 514 is after all a product and CCP does employ a number of people in the Dust 514 team, why should merchandising and Eve Online models get more of a mention than a subsection of the playerbase that IS in the sandbox.
The current playerbase has already slated the lack of Dust 514 in the keynote and I think the video and comments in the forum best represents the overall generalised view Dust 514 players have about CCP. Maybe my comments are premature as fanfest is ongoing. Things can change. But I read this with interest and the response is also interesting.

For some reason the way CCP is going about their VR games very much reminds me about my love for the Splinter Cell games. I like Splinter Cell. I played it on the original xbox and on the 360, each release after the other. I knew about the Splinter Cell offshoots on phones and DS's etc, but I was never tempted to keep up with them even when those other "smaller" releases had free gifts and unlocked items for the main triple A releases on the main systems. That memory makes me wonder how much CCP will push each new slice of the Eve universe on every platform/system/device they can and how much they will want to swing off the Eve Online branch. Maybe I need a tinfoil hat.


Fanfest is worth watching (http://www.twitch.tv/ccp), the future year ahead of Eve is looking to be quiet a blast. And the Eve Valkyrie should be very interesting.


I'm not a fan of the new UI icon's I can see why they would want to do it but modernisation for modernisation sake is not always a good change.
Maybe it's just me but they new icon's, especially the drone identifiers look very space invader...

As for adding the plus sign on top of the NPC icon's again for me this looks completely naff and throws the icons off.

Overall I think the new icon's add a new form of hieroglyphics to the game that the spreadsheet fans will love bit that if you had to describe all these new icon's to a new starter to the game. really if a vet reading a dev blog is making faces then a noob has no chance. Thankfully they are tweaking these and with luck they will get good feedback and adjust things to be "better".

There is so much information from fanfest, form the keynotes/main presentations, that it will take time to look into in detail and as fanfest continues there is sure to be more information and further details. I have to say that I was surprised by the "stats" presentation, fro enjoying it and for the surprise that the last two years worth of data is available for each character.... I almost looked up one site that would present my characters data but I think I'll leave that till I have more time to really check it out.

Nullsec sov is a key point and as with every ting in Eve is related to so much more, there is no way even with all that's been said and argued about it that a proper conclusion can be seen as the future is hidden in NDA'd material, Even the info from Fanfest hinted at more structures that would truly change the face of what we know... time will tell, the other side of fanfest may be clearer.


Besides Watching Fanfests details I tried looking for more updates to the Eve 101 video's but It looks like CCP has taken over eve 101's spotlight on video's on eve. CCP are doing their Flight Academy well but I did like the 101 series.


There was a great article on mmo player behaviour from PC Gamer that is worth reading.


Evogenda had a good post here as well that seems to echo elements in my own game time in Eve.

I'll leave this post and waffle about my characters tomorrow. Apologies in advance for the spelling, a late night spelling check is no spelling check at all. o7

Thursday 19 March 2015

Eve Trial

The trials for Eve Online have been changed to 30 day's..... click here to get yours!!

Democracy 3....

I came across this game, as I do with many, by accident.


Democracy 3 peeked my interest as an offline, micromanagement nirvana. But dont' let my description put you off. Like most games I get I check up on them before I buy, in this case the game can be summed up by one very good youtube video review:

 
Well worth checking out the "WTF IS" channel for more like it.

I went and go the game on steam with 3 addon's for less then €30 on steam.

I don't think that it's a game I'd blog about but there's a "one more try" addiction to the game.
My first two UK game terms were marred by bad fiscal management and a lack of zeal for reelection, the third in the US ended with my and my cabinets bloody assassination.

Friday 13 March 2015

Dust 514 Update....


My time in dust 514 is ongoing. I like the new daily missions, although they seem like they are old hat now. It's always great to get a feature of a game that makes you wonder how it existed without it. I especially like the daily 1 battle win that grants an unlock key for an encryption box. I have far too many encryption box's, 600+, I wont' be spending money to buy Aurum to buy key's to unlock them but free key's are a bonus. There is still uncertainty on the future of Dust 514 and what Legion will be. And what will be transferred if Legion does exist.

The war barge is a nice addition as well and adds that incentive to build on something to increase yourisk/dps etc.... Wow Garrisons in space.

Despite the CPM elections I can't find anything outside the official forums from the CPM, it is a smaller community but it was much more vocal, 2013 must have been the height, last year at fanfest it was slaughtered at it's own red wedding and no wonder there is silence.
Despite Dust's young comparative age against Eve. I just wish there was more. You can't google anything on Eve Online without tripping over pages of posts.I guess each community will be it's own.
But I'd love to see a site dedicated to the fitting of dropsuits!

At least the devposts continue.

The last event held in the game, the 5 Million Clone challenge, was interesting. It definitely made more people play the game as matches were played with full teams on both sides. A drop in numbers was evident once the event was over. One match after it yesterday had 4 people per team, that's the worst I've seen even before the event. But the results as listed in this devblog was interesting! As were the rewards, very much appreciated.

Next up is Hotfix Echo, I look forward to seeing these changes in action.Tweaking for balance is always a good thing... most of the time!

Not my vid but one I came across, interesting and I like the first track of music played :)


Entropia....


I found this article a while back and bookmarked it. I good read and lots of details about the game. I've only now gotten to read it. I have a friend that plays Entropia and has talked about his experiences but it all sounded like too much hard work. Sweating animals for instance.... I didnt' want to know any more details.


Thursday 12 March 2015

Star Trek Online.... take 3.


In the slow end to my wow gaming time I've started to take up Star Trek Online again.

It's in game news said at the time that it was having it's 5th Anniversary! 5 years. I must be having time warp issues. I can't believe it's been out for 5 years!

 

This time warp means I really only spent a very short time at it's start, and my last visit would have only been a blink of an eye.

This time round I've spent a lot ,ore time in the game and have enjoyed it without noticing the time put into it.

There are a lot of people playing the game, the space no matter how far flung always seems to be alive with people and ships coming and going.
Thankfully as I was a subscriber and bought a better edition at the start I do end up with a few good perks and rewards. Not that they are amazing but they help. The best one being that I have a Trill character, so can choose other alien factions to play rather than earning that in game or unlocking it.
I've noticed the amount of micro-transactions you need to get ahead, to have shiny ships and gear. But that has not taken away from the "Free to play" version, if you dont' want to put anything into it you don't have to.

Combat (at least in space) is very much about shield balancing and direction. Weapons have an arc of fire so that generally means keeping your forward shield at maximum and always keeping that forward shield facing the enemy. That becomes harder when against multiple enemies.

 
Combat is eased when killing smaller enemy ships first, avoiding large yeild torpedo's or weapons if possible by adjusting speed, shooting incoming slow moving torpedoes and as always with any mmo, teamwork. The effort needed to do well in combat is not overly complex at all, fitting out ships and characters is a simplified version of wow's character gearing. And unlike Eve online death has no consequence as like wow you simply respawn to continue where you left off. For me, that does not take anything away from the game. It's fun. Even if the ground combat is much more of a button pressing mash up.

STO is a melding of all the shows time lines, with older and newer Trek technologies and characters brought together in a way that works. I'm a fan of the franchise but not a die-hard. Purists will be having fits if they don't take the game for what it is.

The vista's are nice and some moments are very impressive in my opinion.

From killing Borg in a daily mission....




          
                        ..... to combating wayward Klingons, STO has it all.


The story lines are the best part of STO. I found myself playing through the space and ground based missions (like an epic quest chain) without noticing I was spending time on it. They were interesting and offered a story driven way for your character to interact with npc's effortlessly. Levelling was then not a grind at all.
Every 10 levels you get a new rank and with it a new free ship.
It was so effortless I found myself levelling up,  reaching a new decade level was granted a mission to speak to the admiral for a new ship but in completing the "quest chain" I had levelled up another 10 levels so was granted a second mission to speak to the admiral for an even newer ship.
So was granted 2 free ships and one I didnt' even get to use!
That may sound like it's too easy to level up but all that I've described above has left me at level 33 (of 50) and only halfway through the second of the story lines. there are , with 2 extra top level left to do. That's not to mention the special events and reputations to grind away with. Just like wow and Eve online there are factions that you can get reputation with and those factions offer rewards. Better gear and ship upgrades are they main way to ease life in STO, to do it faster you pay.

STO like wow's garrison's has the option to send Duty officers, your very own crew, off to do missions and look into R&D to upgrade items you have. The mission rewards include XP to level your character and this adds up quickly as well.



Editing your character/bridge crew and ship in both looks and item usage adds to the complexity and makes you feel that you have a more personalised connection to your crew, your officers and your ships.




Ship 1

Ship 2

Ship 3

Character look Upgrade

Ship 5

Ship look upgrade

My second Starfleet character also got some extra time.


I ventured into the Klingon characters/storyline.




And did the same for the Romulan's






All in all I enjoyed all my characters, all the story lines are different and per character there are changes. As a free game it is worth it. More so if you are a fan of the tv shows and movies.
I may spend more time in STO soon enough but I am at a point where I have enjoyed my vacation to the land of STO and it's time to return home. Like any other vacation I've enjoyed I can see myself going back. Maybe not to do the exact same thing again but the Klingon and Romulan verities need exploration. I might then see about the familiarity of the Starfleet alt. My main will stay my main in this game and I'll see if I progress further at some stage but the variety is the first and foremost next step for me and this game has it in spades.

Wednesday 11 March 2015

Eve Trial Change

The trials for Eve Online have been changed to 30 day's..... click here to get yours!!


New Star Trek game....

Although I intend to post up a blog about my recent time in Star Trek Online I came across another Star Trek game called Timelines which looks interesting. It won't be in competition with STO on pc but someting to look at when on your Android or (cr)Apple device.

Consoles push back....

I was disappointed to see that No Man's sky was going to be a PS4 "timed" exclusive.
Who knows when the PC version will be properly confirmed.


With news that Elite dangerous is going to be on Xbox One I'm sure it's a tit'for'tat war of the consoles. I still can't see myself buying one. I just hope both companies dont' go buying everything in order to outdo one another.

Funny take on reviewing.... even for wow....


Star Citizen PAX East Presentation


Updates....

It seems like only last week when I last posted. Time flies when your having "fun".
So much for me trying to post more often.

With luck I'll get some posts done and posted in the next few day's.