Wednesday, 11 March 2015
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.
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.
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.
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.
Friday, 20 February 2015
My latest Eve update....
The world of Eve Online is an exciting one, news, changes and updates are the order of the last few month's and looks to be the future. That's a good thing.
There is more info about the coming server verses server tournament in Eve on the last day of fanfest.
http://evenews24.com/2015/02/16/the-small-things-the-tiamat-patch-the-worlds-collide-and-more/
I hope the "world" server beats the Chinese server. Simply for the fact that if the "world" wins my active accounts will get a nice ship.
The official dev blog is here: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/fanfest-2015-worlds-collide/
I came across the main "noob" guide to station trading that is over on the Greedy Goblin.
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.ie/p/newbie-guide-for-riches-in-eve.html
Worth a read for it's information but am glad I'm an Eve veteran when doing so. A vet of the game has a better view and I can poke holes in some of his assumptions and in general his attitude and tone of the piece. Pinch or bucket of salt on standby when reading that site in any case.
The new bits and bobs as well as the new condord shuttle are detailed in this dve blog
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/in-celebration-of-csm-x/
Another shiny to add to the hanger "keep" items box. I intended to vote on all my accounts and now I definitely will be doing so. Especially with the flare items once you've voted. More shinny's... yay.
Being the forecaster of all things statistical it's no surprise that Gevlon has done a post about the coming CSM X and it's candidates http://greedygoblin.blogspot.ie/2015/02/csm-10-recommendations.html I doubt a bucket of salt would be enough for that post.... truck load maybe. Either way I'll be voting for the last candidate listed for sure. One or two others may get a vote as a primary. others as I do more research.
A much more balanced view is here - http://nosygamer.blogspot.ie/2015/02/csm-election-thoughts-going-into.html
And lots of info to make up your own mind here - http://capstable.net/csmx/ & here - https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-10-election
There was a dev blog about the new player experience, rather than change whats there they have added more to it.You can read the dev blog here - http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/opportunities-abound-the-new-player-experience/
I can understand why they have gone this way, sandbox and all. But for me it looks to add more confusion for a noob that is already confused by the system in it's open and still confusing world. The new player experience needs to me more hand held, bull by the nose ring lead. With skip able and repeatable options. Not more open world maybe do x, y or z. Time will tell what it all develops into.I can see it now. Noob channel flooded with more question on how they should do things. as if it wasnt' flooded already, Tsunami alert!
All in all the news and future IS looking interesting. Long may it last.
My mains and alts all still do their usual "housekeeping". Such as PI for my mains and alts, ongoing as usual.
While on my main I bought a lot of aurum items that would fit in the shuttle I was flying but I decided with the number of gankings going on that a courier would be the best choice for moving my new shiny's. I'm glad I did as the courier got splattered on the Jita undock. Thankfully the items I had bought equalled less than 80 Million and the collateral I asked for was 380 Million. so I got a windfall at the expense of the courier and my items. Which I bought again and couriered to my "HQ" with a healthy 300 Mill to spare! Nice profit.
So I decided to buy one of the new T3 destroyer's the only T3 available at the time. The confessor.
I took a fit from the Eve Hermit, Thank you. and only slightly changed it. removing the probe launcher.
The remaining "windfall" isk is still unspent, I'm thinking that it paid for the Mach I bought a while ago as well. So it's all even. At least for me that is.
Some things just need to be bought thought....
Late one night on my null alt I was sitting in HI--sec ship spinning when I thought sod it, I'll jump to a clean clone and take a T1 / T1 fitted frig and go and see what I can explode against. I was in the process when I passed a system that had a corpie in and he asked if I wanted to join a gate camp.
I said yes on the spur of the moment and enjoyed the next 2 and a half hours of killing things. Till I finally lost the frig against a large force that was countering our fleet. A lo was lost by the fleet as it was blapped to bits. It was a good venture. I hope to do this more in the future. But skill training first.
I've already been stock piling T1 hulls and mods to prepare for the pvp explosion that will be my null alt's future. Let the games begin.... in a moment.
His nullsec trading has taken a beating. There was been upheaval in the null markets due to a crusade to get all market prices equal to or lower than Jita prices. I think this is unrealistic considering the location of the main market stations in null. I'm all for a profit and even a healthy profit. And I'm all for ridding the markets of the scammers who but up orders that mimic normal orders but add on an extra zero to profit from someones haste. But with prices so scrutinised it's hard to even make a profit on any item or ship hull now. Some orders have been put up with high volume, lower prices on purpose by the alliance. I've had to resort to selling some T1 hulls at 50% of their Jita value just to stay competitive with the local markets. I have no way to move my large volume of items out of null to make a break even never mind a profit. I can see how the spotlight can force people to make things up and start the scams. If it keeps going this way I'll end up using more of my own stock for my own pvp. Least I have a use for them. I've seen other people reprocess the ships/mods they have made to change to minerals to make other items they need.
Harsh localised world. At least the roaming reds are getting their ganking replacement ships/gear at super low prices. NRDS has it's ups and down's.
I've been doing a lot of Hi-sec missioning of late as well.
The best chart I've come across for damage and resists is this one.
It's a nice "cheat" sheet. http://i.imgur.com/xOMYf1L.png0
I've also gotten to fly a mates Dominix. It's a fit that makes you work for your isk. Constantly watching cap, boosting cap, watching drones getting damaged, repping drones, repping self, keeping track of the mission and trigger npc's. He likes to think that this is the way the game should be played. I think some things are hard enough so why make if more hassle for myself. Cruise fit Raven is fine. Nighthawk is better. Tengu is fast and non afk. There are better ways and each to their own.
My Null alt is doing well. He finally got to sit in the Tengu he bought a while back. Only to find that the fit wasnt' "optimal" for him. Especially with a few not just one a few offline mods. So I replaced a subsystem with a CPU buff sub system to make some mod changes work.
http://evenews24.com/2015/02/16/the-small-things-the-tiamat-patch-the-worlds-collide-and-more/
I hope the "world" server beats the Chinese server. Simply for the fact that if the "world" wins my active accounts will get a nice ship.
The official dev blog is here: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/fanfest-2015-worlds-collide/
I came across the main "noob" guide to station trading that is over on the Greedy Goblin.
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.ie/p/newbie-guide-for-riches-in-eve.html
Worth a read for it's information but am glad I'm an Eve veteran when doing so. A vet of the game has a better view and I can poke holes in some of his assumptions and in general his attitude and tone of the piece. Pinch or bucket of salt on standby when reading that site in any case.
The new bits and bobs as well as the new condord shuttle are detailed in this dve blog
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/in-celebration-of-csm-x/
Being the forecaster of all things statistical it's no surprise that Gevlon has done a post about the coming CSM X and it's candidates http://greedygoblin.blogspot.ie/2015/02/csm-10-recommendations.html I doubt a bucket of salt would be enough for that post.... truck load maybe. Either way I'll be voting for the last candidate listed for sure. One or two others may get a vote as a primary. others as I do more research.
A much more balanced view is here - http://nosygamer.blogspot.ie/2015/02/csm-election-thoughts-going-into.html
And lots of info to make up your own mind here - http://capstable.net/csmx/ & here - https://sites.google.com/site/csmwire/csm-10-election
There was a dev blog about the new player experience, rather than change whats there they have added more to it.You can read the dev blog here - http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/opportunities-abound-the-new-player-experience/
I can understand why they have gone this way, sandbox and all. But for me it looks to add more confusion for a noob that is already confused by the system in it's open and still confusing world. The new player experience needs to me more hand held, bull by the nose ring lead. With skip able and repeatable options. Not more open world maybe do x, y or z. Time will tell what it all develops into.I can see it now. Noob channel flooded with more question on how they should do things. as if it wasnt' flooded already, Tsunami alert!
All in all the news and future IS looking interesting. Long may it last.
My mains and alts all still do their usual "housekeeping". Such as PI for my mains and alts, ongoing as usual.
While on my main I bought a lot of aurum items that would fit in the shuttle I was flying but I decided with the number of gankings going on that a courier would be the best choice for moving my new shiny's. I'm glad I did as the courier got splattered on the Jita undock. Thankfully the items I had bought equalled less than 80 Million and the collateral I asked for was 380 Million. so I got a windfall at the expense of the courier and my items. Which I bought again and couriered to my "HQ" with a healthy 300 Mill to spare! Nice profit.
So I decided to buy one of the new T3 destroyer's the only T3 available at the time. The confessor.
I took a fit from the Eve Hermit, Thank you. and only slightly changed it. removing the probe launcher.
The remaining "windfall" isk is still unspent, I'm thinking that it paid for the Mach I bought a while ago as well. So it's all even. At least for me that is.
Some things just need to be bought thought....
Late one night on my null alt I was sitting in HI--sec ship spinning when I thought sod it, I'll jump to a clean clone and take a T1 / T1 fitted frig and go and see what I can explode against. I was in the process when I passed a system that had a corpie in and he asked if I wanted to join a gate camp.I said yes on the spur of the moment and enjoyed the next 2 and a half hours of killing things. Till I finally lost the frig against a large force that was countering our fleet. A lo was lost by the fleet as it was blapped to bits. It was a good venture. I hope to do this more in the future. But skill training first.
I've already been stock piling T1 hulls and mods to prepare for the pvp explosion that will be my null alt's future. Let the games begin.... in a moment.
His nullsec trading has taken a beating. There was been upheaval in the null markets due to a crusade to get all market prices equal to or lower than Jita prices. I think this is unrealistic considering the location of the main market stations in null. I'm all for a profit and even a healthy profit. And I'm all for ridding the markets of the scammers who but up orders that mimic normal orders but add on an extra zero to profit from someones haste. But with prices so scrutinised it's hard to even make a profit on any item or ship hull now. Some orders have been put up with high volume, lower prices on purpose by the alliance. I've had to resort to selling some T1 hulls at 50% of their Jita value just to stay competitive with the local markets. I have no way to move my large volume of items out of null to make a break even never mind a profit. I can see how the spotlight can force people to make things up and start the scams. If it keeps going this way I'll end up using more of my own stock for my own pvp. Least I have a use for them. I've seen other people reprocess the ships/mods they have made to change to minerals to make other items they need.
Harsh localised world. At least the roaming reds are getting their ganking replacement ships/gear at super low prices. NRDS has it's ups and down's.
I've been doing a lot of Hi-sec missioning of late as well.
The best chart I've come across for damage and resists is this one.
I've also gotten to fly a mates Dominix. It's a fit that makes you work for your isk. Constantly watching cap, boosting cap, watching drones getting damaged, repping drones, repping self, keeping track of the mission and trigger npc's. He likes to think that this is the way the game should be played. I think some things are hard enough so why make if more hassle for myself. Cruise fit Raven is fine. Nighthawk is better. Tengu is fast and non afk. There are better ways and each to their own.My Null alt is doing well. He finally got to sit in the Tengu he bought a while back. Only to find that the fit wasnt' "optimal" for him. Especially with a few not just one a few offline mods. So I replaced a subsystem with a CPU buff sub system to make some mod changes work.
Friday, 13 February 2015
My Word Crimes
I found myself sitting in a cafe for an extended amount of time before an appointment (better an hour early than 5 minutes late) last week.
After I had browsed the Internet on my phone (yes the whole Internet) I found myself browsing my own blog. who would do such a thing!!
Anyway I was horrified to see some many spelling errors, despite the amount of time I do put into re-reading my posts before putting them online. And despite a spell checker pass or two!!
Applogies.
Again!!
After I had browsed the Internet on my phone (yes the whole Internet) I found myself browsing my own blog. who would do such a thing!!
Anyway I was horrified to see some many spelling errors, despite the amount of time I do put into re-reading my posts before putting them online. And despite a spell checker pass or two!!
Applogies.
Again!!
My gaming world....
I could write posts on what RL has slapped in my family's face but I think I'm back to gaming and blogging about it.
Eve is still my online game of choice.
Time will tell if I retry others with RL friends to rekindle some mmo shenanigans.
Wow is all but done for me, I'm not even logging in to do the garrison upkeep. I might before my time runs out try and get some stuff done on my lock, maybe.
I'm not the only person leaving wow from my guild. I thought this post was interesting from The Grumpy Elf.
r've not switched on of gone near my Xbox 360 let alone play any BF4 which ion itself says a lot.
the PS3, specifically Dust 514 have been checked and played late at night. I'm a fan of the last two patches and the changes/improvements made to the game. The graphics and gameplay have been tweaked well. The added changes due to CCP listening to the community are fantastic. If only I could find a significant presence of that community online! Eveything you try to lookup including the official youtube channel is all dated over a year ago...
At least there is the official dust514.com / dust514.com/news/blog/ & the forums there.
Eve is still the same'ol, same'ol.
Both my primary characters remain in Hi-sec, as does my main, Minmatar and Amarr alts.
Already it's sounding complicated.
All these characters are on two accounts. Oddly enough by chance or fate one account has all male characters and the other has all female. It wasn't a conscious decision, it just happened that way.
My Null alt resides on another account but should be moved over to the male side in a good few month's.
Over time these characters have developed their roles.
Both Mains are Caldari, in the same corp and make their living from Level 4 mission runners with the Caldari, Amarr and SOE factions. Get passive/semi passive imcome from datacore agents and P.I. Have a hub to run cosmos/exploration and combat sites out of. And a currently offline POS between it all.
My main alt is in a similar position but not as spread out as those other two.
My racial alts, Amarr and Minmatar are hi-sec, PI'ing carebears with a side of exploration.
I'll try to go into more detail and post about some "projects" I intend to do. I think that would be more interesting. Including a more personalised whats happened to me and my characters within Eve. In a more back to a diary/log kind of way. Back to the roots of this blog.
I am looking forward to the news from fanfest, for both Eve and Dust 514. With a bit of luck some Valkyrie as well.
I'm looking forward to the next release for Eve.
I may have had my own little theory about the sleepers and wormhole space but the new game lore developments have been great and should prove to be very cool. The new hybrid sleeper/Jovian Drifter race "people", ships and cloaked stations should be an incredible ongoing storyline.
I also hope that the new once off ship goes to Tranquility!
http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/fanfest-2015-worlds-collide/
I've been enjoying the Scope news broadcasts that make the Eve world feel more real, at least to me.
Recently this one:
and then this one:
Though I have posted about liking the cloth's given as part of the mystery code and have said I do look forward to the future of WiS (walking in station). I did read this blog with interest.
I mentioned in my last post, perhaps a bit offhand that most people I come across in Eve are "unkind". The emotion of playing eve and meeting/gaming with people of all kinds is always ongoing. This blog entry is of interest in that field.
I'm still gaming away with Rome Toral war (Vanilla/BI Version).
And I just bought the Southpark Stick of Truth game, and have been enjoying it. Seems like it would be a simple game but it's combat is intricate and interesting! The whole tone of the game even if I'm not a Southpark fan is a gamers parody of choice. But enough waffle from me.
Monday, 9 February 2015
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
More Dust for the new year....
I've been playing more Dust 514 and still haven't touched Battlefield 4. I enjoyed BF 4 but I'm enjoying Dust a whole lot more. There is something to be said for being able to have an FPS with keyboard and mouse support on a console.
A new update for Dust 514, Warlords 1.0 coming in a week (3rd of Feb) looks to be giving Dust 514 some changes for the better. Details are here. Good to see there is a road map and the dusty part of the Eve universe is still loved.
A new year, same'ol same'ol for Eve Online.
Like my last Eve post I've had this in draft for some time. I've been adding to it bit by bit so I'll start here and make go of it, with luck it wont' be to patchy.
I've mainly been doing PI/daily housekeeping actions like fiddling with market orders or moving assets about. Both in having not enough time to really do anything and finding myself aimlessly playing a longer gaming session without realising it.
In micromanaging my assets I think I like the idea of where my assets are rather than having them in a cost efficient or streamlined manner.
An example is my mains level 4 mission running. There are 3 factions that I prefer to run level 4's for. So it made sense to have ship x ship y and z there. So of course I had to have the same set of ships with the same fits in the three stations housing the agents. This over years has piled up. In the end I think the isk doesn't matter, only the micromanagement.
The game is to interact with people but jay-bus there are a lot of fuppin eejits I'd prefer to have nothing to do with out there.
I got to do a lot of testing of fits and ships I already had in place to be 100% sure they all act as expected since skills were upgraded etc. But Eve is ever changing and the ship/module re-balancing is ongoing. It's all long term.Probably something I can waffle on about for a long time with no end in sight.
I managed to grab a full set of the chrimbo gifts for an alt for less then 2 mill, which was odd as the other contracts were all going for 25 mill or higher. I could have made a nice profit on a resale of the items but I kept them all. A lot of players would consider that a waste of isk. Isk that could be used to explode or be exploded. We all have our corner of the universe, welcome to my corner of the sandbox. In saying that I still have a need to get characters involved in other Eve experiences.
The added Chimbo gift of 20 day's alt training made the biggest impact.
I had a recheck of all my characters skill plans, did attribute remaps and bought new implants to help speed things up. I think I went into detail about this last time so I won't go on about it here.
Extra training per alt has yielded more skill points into planetary interaction and has doubled the amount of isk for this semi passive profession. Not a bad thing.
I spent the remaining Aurum (2000) on skip skins that I liked but had not bought yet and also got some more avatar items. Despite the killer looks you'd get from some players for even mentioning an avatar I do like the "characters" and look froward the a new era of WiS or at leas the next step, pun intended.
My mains POS finished with a week of fuel to spare. As part of the reshuffling of assets I was happy to sell on some bpc's for a little extra isk.
I've found that gaming on that character is restricted due to a lot of roaming reds in alliance space with cloaked hotdroppers being the main cause for concern. This stops mining, ratting and movement in general. Multiple war decs have halted hi-sec activities as being ganked in hi-sec is not a pleasant thing. It's all "content". Even with all that I've still been able to do a lot. I've managed to move all null assets that were not needed including a few ships like a noctis out to hi-sec. Till the null hangers get bloated again...
The expansion changes have all been good, I really like the new visual clutter for asteroid fields.
I've been reading the daily minutes from the winter summit. Makes me wonder why they never did it this way from the start. I'm sure if was a long process but seems like one of those "duh" moments.
The minutes are here.
Of all the things over the summit minutes the thing to strike me most was the Tengu changes coming.
I truly do hope that is it a T3 re-balance rather than the nerf bad they say they will avoid. As for the CSM there I thought it was interesting to see how much venom was spat out from one member to another when there was a mention of some of the avatar items/issues. Interesting reading.
Eve Hermit has some interesting posts on the minutes that are worth a read.
The ancient gaming noob's blog had a good post I came across that gives a good perspective on the greedy goblin blog that I found interesting.
I am really stretching for anything to write about and share that would be of any interest.
I had a chance over the last while to create an another trail alt and engage in some antics but mainly ended up as a hi-sec killer of lost MTU's with a side of wormhole peekaboo on the side. This doent' bode well for something to do with a 60 Day pass... Maybe I need to think "bigger".
A friend recently got an Eos and my main splurged on a Mac. We haven't gotten to do much with them of late. Still nice to get something shiny every now and then.
Wednesday, 21 January 2015
New year update....
The last month or so has seen a lot of heavy real life upheaval that still continues. So needless to say gaming and this blog have been effected.
This post is a mix of all my gaming bar Eve, that's a separate post next.
I'll start off here with WoW. I had intended in mid December to write up a massive post about my main and his adventures in the new expansion, dinging 100 and the gearing up, dungeon runs, raiding and garrison antics that make the game. But in all honesty I really can't be bothered. I'm that put out of it. I've not had a good feeling with wow in the last little while. I think it started by dinging my lock as my second 100. I found it as a massive anticlimax that made me really see the
grinding nature of wow once again. I've not felt like this since the end of Burning Crusade. Where I was into everything on all the characters I had. I enjoyed the camaraderie but dong the likes of 25 dailies on 8 characters was a worry. It took it's toll. I dont' want to repeat that time.
Take last night, I logged in with my wife to do some wow, first we've done in a good while. Within an hour I couldn't quest, I hated the dungeon pugs when they finally happened. Wow has a draw and accessibility, if it were not for the garrisons I would have quit sooner. I'm not the only wow vet feeling like this and not even waiting for the new raids is of any help.
I also feel that in general the wow players you come across have changed a lot and for he worse. I mainly mean attitudes. And how they interact towards other players. Pugs and LRF being the main source of "contention". So much bickering over so small a slight can result in so much hate being released.
When I started in wow there were three times I clearly remember.
1. Standing by a quest giver in a small town, I was passed by a level 60 player (max at the time). What I noticed first was that he was "walking", no autorun, he was "walking".
He stopped, looked around at his surroundings and walked up to me, then said in /s chat he was new in these lands and asked where he could get a tavern for a drink. This was obviously a role player. The first time I had interacted with a player like that. It was an intriguing moment, and an interesting conversation/experience that followed. Interaction within the game by a player that wasnt' an npc yet still acted as a cog within the game world. A far cry from any random chat these day's.
2. When I started I hadn't a clue yet I remember going about questing and was introduced to the idea of random buffing players. By crossing random players who would cast what buff they could and you would do likewise to them. Like an understanding nod or salute to a fellow adventurer. These day's your only random player interaction is "random tagged my mob", "random took my ore node/herb", random did x, y or z in a step on player to get ahead.
3. Again when low level questing running back to a town I happened to pass a road and heard combat in progress. I took a quick side glance to see what was happening. I saw a mage fighting and being chased buy a large group of spiders. He had iced them in place, blinked and used what he could to evade them but I could see he was in a loosing battle. So I took a few steps and cast a buff and some heals on him. He was then able to get out of their range and promptly sat down and munched on some mage food. I cast some top up heals and a few friendly comments were passed, he was grateful. Over the course of the next few days questing in the same area's we bumped into one another, friendly hello's and comments were exchanged. We seemed to then be on the same quests and started to party up. That was how I meet my first in game friend. We had a lot of adventures together over the years. PVE and some PVP on a realm on a faction far far away, it happens.
I guess my walk down memory lane is that random player interaction used to be a better experience.
My current guild is a great one, well meaning, fair and helpful. Unlike others, we have weathered and discarded a lot of drama.
I tried to get back into pvp to get me into the swing of wow again but that did little to snap me out of it.
I have about 2 month's of game time left, I can see myself logging in updating garrison daily housekeeping and that's it. I'll do the raids when they are released even if that's just LFR to say that I saw and did it.
I've been talking to another rl friend both in and out of wow and he feels the same, he's just marking time. I think we are both looking forward to Star Citizen coming out more than playing wow. That says a lot. I tried to rationalise paying for more wow time but I can't. This was made clear to me when I thought that I should stop spending on wow and maintain spending on Eve Online. Makes a lot more sense to me. I also have icons on my desktop for Star Trek Online, Rift and Guild Wars 2. Free to play games that I should get back into and make a go of at no other cost. They are after all free to play.
I've stopped playing Battlefield 4, and cancelled the renew on the Gold xbox live subscription. I have spent more time on Dust 514 in place of it. The daily freebies to "work" towards are a great game changer and make me want to play. Another free to play game. And one I dont' need a sub on the PS3's network to get online matches.
On an up note I've played some more Rome Total War, yeap the first one. Despite newer or updated games like it I am always drawn back to it. A true classic. There is something to be said for offline single player games. Like being reintroduced to an old friend, the Pause button.
This post is a mix of all my gaming bar Eve, that's a separate post next.
Take last night, I logged in with my wife to do some wow, first we've done in a good while. Within an hour I couldn't quest, I hated the dungeon pugs when they finally happened. Wow has a draw and accessibility, if it were not for the garrisons I would have quit sooner. I'm not the only wow vet feeling like this and not even waiting for the new raids is of any help.
I also feel that in general the wow players you come across have changed a lot and for he worse. I mainly mean attitudes. And how they interact towards other players. Pugs and LRF being the main source of "contention". So much bickering over so small a slight can result in so much hate being released.
When I started in wow there were three times I clearly remember.
1. Standing by a quest giver in a small town, I was passed by a level 60 player (max at the time). What I noticed first was that he was "walking", no autorun, he was "walking".
He stopped, looked around at his surroundings and walked up to me, then said in /s chat he was new in these lands and asked where he could get a tavern for a drink. This was obviously a role player. The first time I had interacted with a player like that. It was an intriguing moment, and an interesting conversation/experience that followed. Interaction within the game by a player that wasnt' an npc yet still acted as a cog within the game world. A far cry from any random chat these day's.
2. When I started I hadn't a clue yet I remember going about questing and was introduced to the idea of random buffing players. By crossing random players who would cast what buff they could and you would do likewise to them. Like an understanding nod or salute to a fellow adventurer. These day's your only random player interaction is "random tagged my mob", "random took my ore node/herb", random did x, y or z in a step on player to get ahead.
3. Again when low level questing running back to a town I happened to pass a road and heard combat in progress. I took a quick side glance to see what was happening. I saw a mage fighting and being chased buy a large group of spiders. He had iced them in place, blinked and used what he could to evade them but I could see he was in a loosing battle. So I took a few steps and cast a buff and some heals on him. He was then able to get out of their range and promptly sat down and munched on some mage food. I cast some top up heals and a few friendly comments were passed, he was grateful. Over the course of the next few days questing in the same area's we bumped into one another, friendly hello's and comments were exchanged. We seemed to then be on the same quests and started to party up. That was how I meet my first in game friend. We had a lot of adventures together over the years. PVE and some PVP on a realm on a faction far far away, it happens.
I guess my walk down memory lane is that random player interaction used to be a better experience.
My current guild is a great one, well meaning, fair and helpful. Unlike others, we have weathered and discarded a lot of drama.
I tried to get back into pvp to get me into the swing of wow again but that did little to snap me out of it.
I have about 2 month's of game time left, I can see myself logging in updating garrison daily housekeeping and that's it. I'll do the raids when they are released even if that's just LFR to say that I saw and did it.
I've been talking to another rl friend both in and out of wow and he feels the same, he's just marking time. I think we are both looking forward to Star Citizen coming out more than playing wow. That says a lot. I tried to rationalise paying for more wow time but I can't. This was made clear to me when I thought that I should stop spending on wow and maintain spending on Eve Online. Makes a lot more sense to me. I also have icons on my desktop for Star Trek Online, Rift and Guild Wars 2. Free to play games that I should get back into and make a go of at no other cost. They are after all free to play.
I've stopped playing Battlefield 4, and cancelled the renew on the Gold xbox live subscription. I have spent more time on Dust 514 in place of it. The daily freebies to "work" towards are a great game changer and make me want to play. Another free to play game. And one I dont' need a sub on the PS3's network to get online matches.
On an up note I've played some more Rome Total War, yeap the first one. Despite newer or updated games like it I am always drawn back to it. A true classic. There is something to be said for offline single player games. Like being reintroduced to an old friend, the Pause button.
Wednesday, 24 December 2014
Monday, 22 December 2014
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.
Tuesday, 16 December 2014
Dust 514.... my new experiance.
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
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.
Tuesday, 9 December 2014
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