Eve's new patch....

The latest patch called mosaic, didn't contain anything I was holding my breath over. Improvements are always good and building these up for the betterment of the game is great and leads on to bigger and better things that will interest me.
New effects look cool but at this time in my gaming I won't get to see many of them. The new V3 shader on structures etc is something I see and they do look much better for it. But the new damage control icon was the most visually "oh look at that" moment and that didnt' last more than a few seconds.

The new burner missions I'm sure will be tough and explode a large number of ships and people will rage and go back for more but I like a challenge and not a random 2 second áss kicking so I'll be avoiding and constantly declining those new missions. These seem to be aimed at the more hardcore percentage of pve theory crafters rather than the masses. That's all well and good but the masses need new angles as well.

Of all the things I wanted to check out, the T3 Destroyer changes, the null ore changes with my alt in null, the new ship skins and to see the new star map changes. The only thing that had me interested for most of my game time yesterday was the new opportunities system.

Ho-lee-hell it's the closes thing to an achievement list that Eve has gotten. I have characters that have done a lot and for some reason because this little opportunities list says that a character hadn't started a private convo, chatted in local of fitted a probe launcher, the *n*l micromanagement freak in me needed to have them checked off the list.

It is both an interesting system for new players and the worst system for players like me and I'd say it's future is bright. I'll curse it yet do it all the way.
How could CCP create this system and be blinded to the fact that it is much closer to an achievement system than a tutorial. Typical CCP maybe. My ire is mainly due to the lack of a retrospective filling in of it's blanks for my characters. If only they made the new system an option for older players, if it wasn't so in my face I probably wouldn't be half bothered with it.

I'm sure leaving the pilot epic journal entry for the old tutorial missions was another oversight. One I'm glad was not removed.

My main was left with a lot of T1 hulls after the "special" ships were converted to hull+skin. I'd say I would sell most but most are not worth selling. I'll probably just end up messing about with a fit for the Hyperion.

 Now that the new skins are in the game and can be learnt and changed at will it seems a little underwhelming to me, almost wondering what all the fuss was about. I'm glad it's in game and I will look forward to a more free from paint it yourself design if/when it comes.

The T3 Destroyers have been whacked with the nerf bat, their golden age is done I feel, but I'm probably exaggerating. I just hate it when you have to remove turrets from ships and start replacing high slots with utilities instead. and I'm just speaking from a pve view... I'm sure pvp'ers are hating the changes even if they "understand" why it had to happen.

My null alt is still in flux and I've not had a chance to check out the ore/mining situation. I may not have that alt in null for much longer. The alliance is "changing" to control new space and loose it's old systems which will ruin my PI setup. Can I still do PI if my alliance lets it's sov go in the system I am currently setup in.......hmmmmm. Anyway the "new" systems are a lot less viable in my opinion, not that I know much about sov and moon mining. But if there are roaming reds in our current space and the new systems are a main thoroughfare for red traffic I'd say it's less viable, pvpers rejoice maybe.



So all in all it's more a micromanagement, sort out my stuffs again patch, not the worst that's come along.

EVE Fanfest 2014 - New Eden is Not Internet Spaceships

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NcRBgQm1J4

New Eden update....

I've not been up to much within New Eden of late due to a lot of RL issues. A bit of logon/character maintenance etc.

I'm glad to see that there will be an implementation of the two factor authentication for account login. I'm sure they will be fine tuning the process and making it better but it's been a long time coming.

The new Scope news vids have been interesting.
For the new ship skins:

And the ongoing Drifter shenanigans:

The removal of the starter tutorials is a bit of a loss but seems to be replaced with a more free form opt in/out system that is a lot more welcome.I might just start a new alt with one of my 60 day trial codes and test out the new opportunities system.

I attempted to get my primary alt back into exploring WH space. I undocked him, scanned a down a WH entrance and checked out the system on the other side. It was a very underwhelming experience after my other attempt. So I returned him to hi-sec and parked up. I need to get into a WH corp to make any more of that side of New Eden. I did check out some blogs/posts regarding getting a solo ship going to do some sites in certain WH's but that is a lot of isk and effort for no guarantee of isk and a large percentage of getting my ship handed to be just because. This needs more time.

Faction warfare is also of more interest to me due to it's opt in/out capabilities.
This guide to join FW and this beginners guide are both old but still worth a read.

The null side of life for my alt is more of less the same. Ratting/mining/manufacturing and selling on the local market. I'm still building up a small but steady stockpile to use for my pvp experiment whenever I can get away from an implant clone. There has been an increase in the number of war dec's and roaming fleets causing trouble. Mainly probing for weakness. There was a group before Fozzisov was announced that pretty much liberated a system all for themselves. They may not have been able to hold it for long but I think that shows the new system will not bode well for my side. Holding what they have will take a lot more effort. Time and the new system will tell.


I like the new updates site that CCP is using, but Im still partial to this one.

I'm really happy to see the new content the new patch should be a good improvement to things.
I only hope that the mach making is tweaked as both my main and alt are getting smashed against a lot of very pro teams giving me only heavy losses.

Thera and back again....

With a lull in my main alts training time I decided to be impulsive and take a covert ops into Wormhole space in search of two things, find and see Thera & general fact finding exploration regarding navigating and scanning in that space.
Nothing like practical application to burn learning facts into the 'ol noggin.
Living in Wormhole Space, Wormholes 101, Wormhole Fundamentals To name a few are all good resources. There is so much information, so much good information that wading through it all is a task and a half so I decided to jump in literally.

I've had some experience with WH space but never lived there. I've read blogs and articles about life there etc. It made sense to me to start this off with the more general learn stuff objective and find my way to Thera at some stage. I decided to not over think this little venture and skipped reading a lot of content.

My alts skills in the scanning department are not stellar but I think they at least cover the basics.

The ship I chose was one he had the most skills in. The Buzzard like his skills covered most bases. The basic fit I chose for it was nothing special either, I simply downgraded some items, added a T1 1MN MWD, warp core stab, MAU and replaced an expanded launcher with a core version and added in some SOE Probes.

Next up was to insure this little minnow as I fully expect to get killed. I was surprised that there was not a bigger payout for the max level.

After considering the ships fit, the skills my alt had and the options on the market for changing that fit I made one final change.
I swapped out a small Grav for an Algorithm Bank. T1's of course.

Next up on the non existent list was to park up my main and hop onto a "clean" clone that would take the plunge.

So I had a clone and a ship, I decided to undock and "do this thing".
The system I was in, in hi-sec of course, had two cosmic signatures, one combat and one WH, how fortuitous. Best a place to start as any....

I do like that each type of WH now has its own aura/colour.

So I entered the system and started to stick my nose about.
Yes I bookmarked the entrance point on the other side so I could jump back without scanning it down again. Very important.
I made a safe point or two and launched my probes to start scanning. D scan was a problem as my filter settings were not optimal even when I thought they were.
The system was occupied but didnt' seem to see any active members. I did see that all the planets had customs offices and that they were owned by a rather famous pvp áss kicking alliance. I wasn't going to be doing anything uncloaked.

I had two choices, I could scan down another WH and see what I jumped into from there or I could warp to my entrance bookmark and get back to hi-sec.

It felt risky at a safe to uncloak and reload probes never mind anything else in system. Data and Relic sites would need an SOE ship for covert/combat capabilities to a point. I'd learnt that at least. That's a large isk gamble (to me) I will not be taking just yet.

I chose to scan out another WH and move on. I uncloaked and launched probes, warping and recloaking as I went. I warped cloaked a few times to be random and scanned down a new WH to jump into. I repeated the probe collection routine, cloaked and warped etc and did the final warp to the WH entrance. Good thing I decided to land a little off the WH as there were "others" gathered there.
Unluckily I was uncloaked while distracted looking up detailsof the people and ships on the overview, I couldn't read fast enough, I warped to my entrance bookmark asap and activated my cloak.

Tail firmly between my legs I was back in Hi-Sec.


At this point I was glad to have peeked into it but had done more on previous jaunts with less experience.
My Main in a Drake running some sites in another persons active wormwhole is a whole other story.
While back in the hi-sec system I saw that there was a site I could loot and ran it with 20k loot, hardly the payday I could get in null or WH space but it was all about the little victories at the moment.
As I hacked my way through that site I remembered a WH system mapping site, Siggy, this made me recall another site that I had to search for but was inactive. A few more clicks later I came across THE site I remembered seeing before that would save me randomly and forever scouting a way to Thera: https://www.eve-scout.com/. 
So using it's information I had an entrance from a Hi-sec system 15 jumps form me that would lead me directly into Thera. It felt almost like cheating!

There is such mix of community/tools/apps/sites that make the game better, but I think that without researching even a bit you loose out on the enhancements the metagame brings. There is just so much of it(current and legacy).

So I travelled and made my way to the system that was listed as having the WH to Thera, scanned it down and with the info from the website knew if was the correct one.

And Jumped through.

I expected the system to be camped and swarming with pvpers in a Star Wars Mos Eisley kind of way. It wasn't.
Dotlan seems to have been blocked on showing kills/details for the system. But zkill gets the pvp kill data. I wasnt' worried about the pvp of getting podded. I wanted to see the system for myself to say that I was there if nothing else. And I did, Checking out each station (not that there is any real variety).

 

I looked at some sites and checked out the very large warp times to get anywhere in the system. I took it all in.

I did not see one person on the undock or near any station. I didn't see much on Dscan except for some mobile depot's and can's in space.
It felt very very empty.
zkill shows activity but I can't help but thing that if the SOE/interbus or some other neutral/all faction corp was given a policing contract the system would be used as a new Jita for WH players/corps/alliances. I'm sure CCP is Thera-crafting its strategy on this system and policing it is the last thing on their mind. Maybe I missed the high noon or maybe only certain time zones are active in it.

 
I like that the system is so big. I actually feels as a solar system should be. Expansive.

CCP should think about a change in the gravity of all star systems to enlarge the current systems to be bigger. A consequence of the recent star explosion perhaps. A way of altering the systems of Eve into the Eve solar systems 2.0. That may be too much tinfoil hat thinking.

After warping up and down the system and looking at the sites (literally) I warped back to the bookmark entrance and jumped back to hi-sec.
Mission accomplished.
Only the more general WH discovery to go. I think I'll be doing that with another character who I'll get to join a proper WH corp and see how that works out.

I've yet to fly my Main alt back to his HQ and refit his Buzzard and clone jump to get more training in. Or maybe I'll take another run or two in a WH.... Time will tell.

Sharing is caring....

Player trading within Dust 514 has been wanted and needed since the game started. The news that it is coming later this month sounded good.

It's a great new feature and seems to be done in a no hassle way, as long as you trust the person your giving stuff to.

Dust trading

"Give" is the big keyword here. I don't see why they couldn't have done something similar to Eve contracts, or better still done it like a wow mail where transporting items is instant and has a COD (cash on delivery) option. It's a subject that's been talked and discussed at length but this new system is what's happening.

As it stands the biggest butthurt for me is that to use the system you need to be at loyalty level 4.
That sucks.
I play this game as a Free to Play game, I invest no money into it. I've been playing for the guts of a year and am only 3/4 the way though the second level (level 1). I'm not alone in thinking level 4 is too high. #14, #44, #53.

My main has lower level items/suits that will never be used again. My alt could use them.
My alt has items/suits that will never be used. My main would find these handy.
What's the harm in trading these with my own characters.
Even with a lowering of the level I probably wont' be allowed to use the new system on either of my characters.

Post #64 sums this up nicely.

#64

Gaming habit....

Good article.... about "Why habit formation is the key to long term retention".

 

 

I can see CCP moving in ways that will form more of this kind of loop. 

The last few years you can see they are making things "better"/"simpler" and giving appeal for a broader range of players. While still keeping the die-hard niche somewhat happy. 

 

Eve's pvp buzz is a heart pounding experience at first. 

Then you get used to it, you try to reclaim that first feeling by adding to the mix or taking a more expensive ship out to pvp in. You have the added bonus of fleet camaraderie that helps and replaces that rush with a hunter pack mentality. 

Even as a carebear in my early day's I'd be literally freaking out after loosing something/anything. Now I'm losing Loki's and just shrug my shoulders and pretty much say "meh".

 

It's a tough balancing act but wow is the real master of this art. Scary when you start thinking how long your subscribed to a game.... 

 

At least things in Eve are more "permanent". A frigate you fly in your first week can be more useful in your tenth year.

My New Eden Update....

My game time in Dust of late has been revolving around further "suit spinning", not quite like the Eve version but setting up suits/fits and testing them out, it has it's fun.
Since the last major patch the number of "better" items that are salvaged after fights has seen my asset count soar. Not that I can use half the suits or items I have but it's nice to see what other options there are.
I've used some of the reward suit that allow more slots to be used as they give more power and cpu usage. Although I have scaled back on this, I want to keep the "better" gear for when I can better use it.... somewhere down the line. The best thing I did recently was to buy a few of the pre-fitted suits for my race/faction and use them. I got the militia, standard and advances suits. The militia was not pre-fitted but I used the standard suit as it's template. Oddly enough the standard suit/fit was way better than the militia. lol. I began with 200 standard suits, and another 100 since. Best fun in using them. They allow the skills I have to be used more effectively.  The militia suits/fits (250 of them) are going to be left in the hanger till I sell or scrap them. Or use them inmatches where I don't care about the loss's. I need about 250k SP to finish off skills needed to be able to use the pre-fit advanced suits so I'm only buying/using enough standard suits as I go.
This has lead me into refitting my own Templar gear/mods/fittings, experimenting with new items and modules and to adjust and learn. Getting the "hang" of the market to find the prefit suits is all spawned from my starting a new alt, my first Dust alt. As part of the starting gear there was not just faction specific fitted starter suits but cross faction fits listed. Needless to say I tried them out and after consideration I have to say that the Minmatar seems like the most fun and powerful to play (for my low sp alt anyway) Amarr comes second mainly due to the scrambler rifle with Galente and Caldari being last. Caldari being very last. My new alt has none of the free perks that the main has but it is still a lot of fun to play. I like the way that the alt is treated as a character in it's own right getting it's own set of daily missions to try and it's own daily logon bonus.
It may not have any active SP time but SP is being built up by the matches and bonus's completed. That's a nice thing without taking away form the real time sp tick on the main.


The daily mission rewards are continuing to be a great motivator. They add a one more kill/game/capture element to my game time. I'm looking froward to the next event that will add some spice.
I've not looked back using the mouse and keyboard either, it really is the only way to play!
There is so much potential with this game. So many people could still be attracted to play. I was glad to hear that CCP is making a profit form Dust, very welcome news. I hope that CCP can see that there could be a lot more done for the game and in turn CCP, if there are a few more resources used to help it along....

 

Good trailers/promos, pity there are no new ones.

There has been a lot of talk on Eve blogs about what players consider to me their main character. People have been sharing their perspectives. The first blog I read on this was Evehermit's Who are you, who am I? entry, that then lead me onto the others he listed.
It's something that's been on my mind for a long while. I have main's and alts and I consider them to be my own perspective on the game. But I dont' really do anything with them that would pigeon hole them into one category. I consider both of my accounts to have a main. Both mains have the most SP per account and are along the same lines (mission runner, pve, hi-sec carebear jacks of all trades). Albeit one is 30 million sp lower than the other. I've talked about these and my alts before and I've talked about getting them into different activities, maybe not like a specific alt doing only one thing but a pack of alts of all trades. Maybe I need to pigeon hole each one more.
The main problem when I do start to look into getting them specialised is the time needed. I recently gave an example of my main alt(yes it's a term), looking into joining a WH corp. The time and activity level needed to join the corp at the level I wanted was so much that it would outstrip the way I currently play the game and take up way more time than I currently spend between all my characters.
The only success I've had is with my null alt, I was very lucky with him to be in the corp he is in mainly because I'm left alone to do my own thing, no mandatory fleet ops etc. Interact when I want to. I've extended his game time by 6 more month's.
The game time on my Amarr alt has run out but there is still another 160+ day's of training to do.
My Minmatar alt has about 60 day's of training left and will need about another month on the end of that.
I've stopped paying for my wow subscription and that's how I justified my null alt's extension of time. I still feel the need to train my Minm and Amarr alts but at the same time I'm conflicted. Why train them if I'm not going to use them more. Training for the sake of training is a time and RL money sink. I need to use my characters more. And for better reasons than to micromanage what I've already invested in.
At the moment besides my null alt all my characters can pretty much be considered to be solo play in the hi-sec sandbox, that is less of a taboo now than it was in the past.
It takes so much time and effort to try and get a good corp with good people you can interact with. Despite the RL friends I've played with in Eve there are only a handful or other corps that I can say I've been part of in all my Eve time.

Having waffled away far too much I can say that in game I've started to streamline what my characters can use and should keep. selling off the rest or transferring it to my main on my first account (my main main, yes it's a term ;-p) to be held only by him or sold off. The previous redistribution has only made the assets become a clutter over a larger area.  I can see myself clearing and stripping away a lot more or this clutter to bring more streamlined meaning to what my characters use and should use more. Just because a character can fly every ship doesn't mean that character needs to own every ship.... 

The news about changes to Brave is continuing to evolve. Interesting to see.
http://www.themittani.com/news/brave-leadership-crisis-alliance-leader-forced-out
http://evenews24.com/2015/04/06/lycton-kondur-removed-as-brave-collective-executor/

The new vid for the TV areal.... Sorry Jackdaw Caldari T3 Destroyer:

 

I liked the o7 show's Report:

Happy Easter....