Googlicious.

I don't change browser home pages lightly. I've had the same Yahoo page for years; customized to my liking and soon forgotten. I've ignored fancier options over the years until I started using Blogger recently. This required me to sign up for a gmail account instead of just taking my usual Yahoo email. This, of course, triggered a change when opening up a Google page as I am wont to do. There was now something called iGoogle which looked suspiciously like a portal page. Still, I was able to ignore this new development until I decided to investigate Google Reader as a way to keep track of my blogs both at work and home. Hmmm, maybe I should take a second look at this iGoogle and its widgets.

Browsing the widgets available on iGoogle was a pretty daunting task. There must be thousands of apps available for this thing! Everything you could want to cram into your home page is available. You can even find a list of Eve Online apps here. Neat, I could keep track of my skill training and even market transactions from a browser at work.

Looks like I have a new home page now.

Fanfest PVP Tournament Rules

Rules, in written and video form, for the Fanfest PVP tournament can be found here.

I think if I was lucky enough to attend this year's annual Fanfest held every year in Reykjavik, playing Eve would probably be the last thing on my mind. Nevertheless, the rules this year are a departure from the usual Alliance PVP tournament format and really sound like great fun. Hopefully, Eve TV can rise from the dead to once again provide its excellent Fanfest coverage.

Veldnaught

Veldnaught outside a station in Amarr and not its natural asteroid habitat. Observe its placid behavior despite the Minmatar shuttle buzzing around it. Croikey, it's big!

Vengeance is Mine

My first encounter with the NPC known as Rachen Mysuna actually happened a few days after my Raven purchase and subsequent level 4 mission-running. Only, it wasn't in my own mission. A corp-mate had put the call out for additional DPS to help kill the last stubborn NPC in his level 4 mission and I just happened to be in the neighborhood. Intrigued, I offered my help and that was my introduction to Mr. Rachen Mysuna and his über shield tank.

Eventually, I drew this mission for my own and did the usual mission prep in finding all that I could about it. I came across this particular entry in http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=Vengeance4gu:

Rachen Mysuna have 50km orbit range and 75% chace for shield boost (1000hp each 10 seconds) so low SP BS pilots can have problems breaking his tank. Rachen's 25% chance for defender doesn't help either.

That first try didn't turn out so well. The rest of the mission was as easy as level 4's get. But Rachen was a tough nut to crack on my own so I had to call for backup myself from a kindly corp-mate. I would eventually get this mission again several times and I would have to refuse my agent every time. I think that bastard actually enjoyed watching me squirm while I did the mental computations on whether it was feasible this time or not.

So, today, he once again offered Vengeance to me with a slight smirk. Only this time, I surprised him by accepting it. Since that first time, several things had changed that I felt would give me a good chance at soloing Rachen. First, there was my full rack of Arbalests. I also had trained up to 5 tech II medium drones and level III of Drone Interfacing. I had also gotten some DPS implants and I had finally been able to fit in the third Ballistic Control System II into my setup.

This time was a bit closer but I still needed just a little more oomph. So I went back to my mission base and traded in some loyalty points and isk for Caldari Navy Wrath Cruise Missiles. Warping back, I found myself about 30km from Rachen Mysuna. Rather than keep my distance from him like last time, I strove to close in and reduce the flight time of my missiles. He folded so easily I couldn't believe it. The missiles didn't do that much more damage. I suspect that the short range played havoc with his Defender missiles and that was the reason for my solo victory. Either way, it was still a sterling vindication of how far my DPS had come from that first try.

Upcoming Patch Notes

Empyrean Age Patch 1.1 notes can be found here.

The Wait is Almost Over

new eve store, new ship models - the wait is almost over!

reported by CCP Wrangler 2008.08.28 19:52:24 NEW

This Friday, August 29th, the EVE Store will be disabled, but don't worry, within 48 hours after that we will roll out a brand new store* to satisfy all your needs for EVE paraphernalia. The new store will be based in North America and our new carrier will be FedEx, allowing us to offer a reliable shipping service with the ability to track your packages.

The new store will herald in the arrival of the long-awaited Collectible Battleship Models!

The EVE Online Battleship Models are constructed from a solid resin foundation and are mounted, ready for display, on a base emblazoned with the associated faction logo. The meticulous reproduction of EVE Online's ships is achieved through a combination of plastic detailing, cast metal components, and hand painted accents. The end result is a striking replica of the very ships soaring through space in New Eden.

The four Tech I Battleships will sell for 124.99 USD each, and the four Faction Battleships are sold as a set for 499.96 USD. We're offering a special 15% discount on all ships ordered by September 30th.

Now you can truly play EVE Offline, though you may get some strange looks from friends and family!

Sweet!

Of Clones and Veldnaughts

Yikes! I was vaguely aware that I probably needed to check and see if my medical clone was up to date but when I finally got around to it yesterday, I found out that I had indeed outgrown my current clone by a few thousand skillpoints. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't decide to go on that EUNI rampage at the last minute even though I missed out on the Titan. I would like to think I would've remembered to check my medical clone status before I left, but I've done dumber things before. For those that aren't aware, if you happen to get podded in an outdated clone, you lose random skill levels to cover the skillpoint difference, starting with any skills you have trained to level V.

There's two schools of thought regarding medical clones. One is to only get the minimum you need as you need it. The other is to go for one that will cover you far into the future; after all, they are relatively cheap. Since I'm currently carebearing it up in highsec, I went with the second option, not seeing any downside to it at all. I found out the downside after suffering my first podding trying to run the Rancer gatecamp. Even though it is relatively cheap, any skillpoint buffer you have purchased goes to waste every time you get podded. So I went back to plan A. Methinks I need to find a happier medium.



There's a few things in the game that interest the sightseer in me and I had planned to go and visit them someday: the Eve Gate, the wreck of Steve, and Chribba's Veldnaught. So I was a little bit upset on hearing the news yesterday of it being moved to low-sec. This thread grew a life of its own until CCP came back with some good news and I just moved visiting the Veldnaught a bit higher in my to-do list.

Greetings everyone,

About those capital ships in high sec… First, I’d like to apologize for this whole debacle. The simple truth is that our policies on capitals in high sec were not all that clear internally as well as officially. In hindsight, we should have given the matter more thought and discussion before acting, a valuable lesson to learn and we’ll remember it in the future. The general idea was that no capitals should be allowed in high sec and then we had some vague un-official guidelines on ships built before changes and whatnot. Those rules were never really actually set in stone and hence the situation we face now.

This is an excellent opportunity to change all that. We have therefore decided to set the following rules for capitals in high sec:

1. Capital ships may under no circumstances be used for aggression.

2. If at war, or with war declaration pending, you may not take your capital ship out of station.

3. You may not use your capital ship’s attributes to gain any sort of advantage over other players while in high security space.

4. Breach any of the above and receive 2 weeks ban and off to low sec with your capital.

Along with those brand new actual rules, we will move Chribba’s Veldnaught back to Amarr, and will also move any other capital ship, by request, that was built in high sec before these changes were introduced. Anyone who had a viable high sec capital moved and wants it back should petition and we will take care of it as soon as possible.

With actual official rules on capitals in high sec, we should be able to make things work without further issues. We will be diligent about enforcing the new rules and anyone found in breach of them will have the offending capital ship moved out of high sec without advance notice, reversal or reimbursement. A two-week ban will also be imposed on the owner.

Thank you for your feedback, patience and understanding.

GM Grimmi Lead Game Master

Extravaganza and a Tale of Two Arbalests

I'm looking at my wallet and notice I have a healthy balance going so I thought now would be a good time to upgrade my Raven Cruise Missile Launchers to Arbalests. I look at the market and notice they go for around 4 million each; now why did I think they were more expensive than that? I do a price check on Arbalest Heavy Missile Launchers and find my answer: they are going for around 14 million each! I know I have one fitted on my Drake and a quick search of my assets turns up another one lying around in a hangar. So I take both of those and off to Jita I go. The isk I made selling those 2 Arbalests was more than enough to buy a full rack of 6 Arbalests for my Raven.

The CPU savings from going with Arbalests enabled me to fit in a 4th Tech II shield hardener. Previously, I'd been forced to warp off and even fail a mission when my sub-standard tank couldn't face up to the combined DPS in a mission. This happened in my first try at level 4 Guristas Extravaganza. So I was keen to try my new tank when GE turned up for me again yesterday from my agent.

I could definitely see the difference the 4th hardener was providing. Even in the 4th room with the Amarr Heavy Missile Batteries shooting EM on my thermal/kinetic tank; there was never any scary moments like in the past. I was even lucky enough to get my first ever faction drop, a Dread Guristas Kinetic Deflection Amplifier, from the structure in the bonus room. It was definitely a profitable, if lengthy, mission as I also took the time to salvage all the wrecks. More Guristas Extravaganza please, Mr. Agent Guy.

Now that I have my tank where I want it to be, I want to increase my DPS to where it doesn't take me as long to run these missions.

WAR and War is Over

The WAR open preview weekend is over as well as our war with the one-drake wonder. One good thing about the ingame war is that being back in Korsiki made it hard to pass up on some classes like I normally would be able to from my usual mission hub. So I decided the time was right to train up Astrometrics IV in time for a scheduled class in exploration. There was also another class in recon scanning a day earlier than the exploration class I would be able to take part in although I would only have Astrometrics trained up to III by that time. I had audited similar classes in the past but taking part in the practical would go a long way towards really understanding the process.

I dusted off my never-used Heron that I think I got from a tutorial mission arc somewhere and fitted it with a Scan Probe Launcher and bought some probes. Showing up at the recon class, I quickly learned the difference between Recon and Scan Probe Launchers so I excused myself while I bought a Recon Probe Launcher from the neighboring system. I learned the differences between the different recon Probes and even though I couldn't use Spooks yet, I was able to scan down a willing volunteer successfully on a number of occasions. I really need to get some more bonuses to cut down on scan time though as well as train up Cloaking ASAP.

Unfortunately, the exploration class was postponed in order not to conflict with a Rampage scheduled the same day. I wanted to attend the class so was willing to miss out on the Rampage and hadn't thought to check the forums until it was too late. I was wondering why there was nobody in the classroom Vent channel at the appointed time. Oh well, back to the WAR preview I guess. Imagine my disappointment upon learning the rampagers had met up with a Titan and gotten doomsdayed as a result. Man, I would've loved to have been there and seen that.

WAR First Impressions

After being in the open sandbox that is Eve Online for a few months, it was time to go back to the amusement-park-on-rails I was so used to in previous MMORPG's. My very first impression is that Games Workshop really needs to update their logo. That thing really hasn't aged that well.

The graphics are stylized and cartoony in a style similar to WoW but not quite so over the top. The gear looks a lot nicer and more functional on the WAR toons. No exaggerated anime swords and the shields look as though they might actually be able to block a few hits. The sound effects were okay for the most part aside from the annoying choices they made for the jump and running animations. The music was suitably inspiring and sparse; in fact I left it on the default setting which is something I never do in a MMORPG.

The game ran pretty well for the most part on my machine which is about a year old and could barely run AoC. There were some spots which caused FPS loss but it's my hope that they weren't done optimizing the whole game yet.

Gameplay wise, there was more than enough content to go through the preview weekend with. Public quests, open groups, and Tome of Knowledge are really as nifty as advertised. I especially liked the little nods to explorers they included in this game. If you like to venture off the beaten path or find out exactly what happens when you do this; you will enjoy the little tome unlocks you get as a result.

The PVP feels like a very integral part of this game; unlike in WoW where it was pretty much an afterthought. From the ease of queueing for a scenario to very nice equipment you can purchase with the right PVP rank; even getting XP while PVPing. There is literally no more excuse for players to not want to PVP in this game. I hope they can get the class balance right though. I definitely do not want to be the guy that has to do it for this game.

For the TLDR crowd, I'll sum it up in this paragraph. WAR is a very polished RvR MMORPG. If that's what you're looking for, then sign on the dotted line. If you're looking for the next WoW killer or something that can replace WoW for you; you might want to look elsewhere. I don't really know if I'm looking for what WAR has to offer but they have me at least for a month while I find out.

Eve Online is Very Unique

One of the many reasons I love this MMORPG is the depth and complexity you just don't get in other MMO's. This point was once again hammered home as I was perusing the corporation forums and came across this post by Kody Apollo entitled ISK Making with no skill training on a brand new alt:

One trick you can use to make money is to sell expensive non-market items like prostitutes. There's a certain section of the pvp community that wants to look good when they lose their ships.

So they have roleplay items into their ship that appear on the killmails.

Look at the single VIP in the cargo hold.http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=5660

Prisoner in cargo.http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=5457

Exotic Dancers in cargo.http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=5296

Pax Amarria, Slaver and Slaver Hound in the cargo.http://killboard.eve-ivy.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=4890

Some of the items are very easy to get because they are sold by NPC stations. However, some of the items like prostitutes, VIPs, Prop Comedians can only be obtained in missions.

I mentioned Prostitutes because people have buy contracts for them at 5mil each, and you can probably put a sell contract up and sell them for far more. I've seen buy contracts for them for 10-15mil one week.

The VIPs I checked this morning are going for 1mil a piece and you can get 10 in the mission.

Now the two tricks are knowing which missions load which items. The Prostitutes are the final mission item of a series of 3 courier missions that start with "Feeding The Troops". These can be done quite easily in a shuttle. You may want to make a completely new alt character for this as you'll need to fail the final mission if you want to keep the prostitute.

The VIPs can be found in worlds collide level 1. If you know what you are doing you can start a completely new character, buy a 300k ISK ship and manage to get the VIPS without doing any skill training. Again you need to fail the mission.

Now the second trick is getting the mission that has the highly valued item you want. The thing is it's relatively easy because there's heaps of level 1 agents all over the place.

Since you don't care about losing standing, you make your new alt character fly to each agent check if they give the mission you want, cancel, check again, cancel (losing a little standing this time), check again. Move to another nearby agent and repeat this process. The standing loss is relatively low for canceling a level 1 courier mission before the 4 hours delay is up so you can probably cancel about 5 times for each agent rather than 3.

For courier missions there's 16 agents you can try out in the The Forge region Okomon constellation.

Okomon Agents

That's (3 tries)*16 = 48 missions you can cycle through.

For combat missions there's 19 agents you can try out in the Lonetrek region Karnola constellation.

Karnola Agents

That's (3 tries)*19 = 57 missions you can cycle through.

Once you completely kill the standings by canceling or rejecting too many missions just reroll your alt character and start again.

You can fiddle around with the settings on the agent finder see if you can find better concentrations of agents in other constellations or
regions.

There are probably be other valued items that aren't available on market, but can be easily obtained through missions in the same way. Just need to keep your eyes open.

Seriously, how awesome is that? What other MMORPG can you say with a straight face that you sell prostitutes and prop comedians for a living?

WAR Preview Weekend

Greetings!

It is our pleasure to invite you to the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Preview Weekend taking place this Friday, August 22nd thru Monday, August 25th. Join thousands of your fellow players and experience the Age of Reckoning for the first time as you adventure through two tiers of content across three campaigns.

This is an invite-only event, so don't delay in preparing for WAR and be one of the first to engage in the thrill and glory of RvR combat before the rest of the world!

Below are instructions on how and where to download the game:


Closed Beta Participants

- If you are currently in the WAR closed beta, you will automatically be granted access to the Preview Weekend. Simply continue to patch your client and you'll be ready to play.


Pre-Order Customers

- Download the open beta client from Fileplanet.com (http://www.fileplanet.com/betas/who_key_auth.aspx). You will be required to create a free FilePlanet account and input your open beta pre-order code to access the file.
- In addition we also provide the client via bit torrent as an alternative means to download. You will find the link to the Torrent file here: http://torrent2.eamythic.com/WarBeta.torrent

Welcome to WAR. See you on the battlefield…WAAAGH!!!

Interesting. This came in my email this morning. I knew about the preview weekend but was unsure if my pre-order entitled me to an invite or not. I didn't bother to get the Collector's Edition which would've guaranteed me a spot so I thought I'd have to wait until Sep. 9 to play in the Open Beta. Apparently, they had a few open spots left and I managed to squeak in. I'll be checking this out after work today and I'll be sure to post my impressions here.

Highlander

Connor MacLeod: How do you fight such a savage?
Ramirez: With heart, faith and steel. In the end there can be only one.

It didn't take me long to discover that multiple accounts were the norm for this MMORPG rather than the exception. Easily understandable once you find out that you only get 3 character slots per account and training needs to be paused on one character if you wish to train another one up. The ease of running multiple clients on one machine and even CCP running specials like The Power of Two just underscore this fact.

You can leverage multi-accounts in so many ways in this game. Running a hauler while a miner mines away relieves some of the tedium associated with this activity. Running multiple ships in a mission can speed it up and increase the safety factor. Not to mention you can specialize and even sell off your alts if you ever need the isk or just get tired of your side project.

I'm making the conscious decision to just stick with one account, however. Yes, that means if I want to do anything solo in this game that I'm just making it that much harder on myself. I'll stick with my main and train him up to do everything I'm interested in doing in Eve. If it takes a little longer before I can do everything I want or at the expertise I want then so be it. If it's one thing I can throw at a MMORPG, it's plenty of free time. Those two extra character slots aren't going to waste, though. I have standard trade alts on them parked in separate trade hubs generating some extra income.

Maybe if CCP ever comes out with another offer like The Power of Two, I might relent my position. But for now, I'm quite happy flying around New Eden on the one account.

Warhammer Online: Pre-Loaded

As much as I tried to avoid it, it proved too much to dodge all the pre-release hype and buzz surrounding Mythic's new foray into the MMORPG scene. I knew I was going to play it but I figured I'd try it a couple months after release giving Mythic time to iron out any possible kinks. After being burned by the Beta excitement of AoC, I figured I owed the next company a shot of presenting their best possible face to me.

That resolution lasted until the NDA lifted and the floodgates were opened for bloggers and other web presences to reveal some of the gameplay features that would be coming out in WAR. After finding out pre-orders would be able to play in an Open Beta and that it would be possible to pre-order from direct2drive bypassing the usual pre-order hijinks that occur when you pre-order from an online retailer, the deal was sealed.

So now the Open Beta has been pre-loaded on my system and I'm just waiting for Sep. 9 to come around to start scribbling my first few entries into my own Tome of Knowledge.

Warbeer!

So it seems as if Ivy League has been wardecced by an appropriately named one-man corp. This is my third war now since I've been with Eve University and I've a hankering to fly something a little more substantial than my standard tackling frigate. But since I'm still a PVP noob, I want something that won't break the old bank if it goes pop.

A cruiser sounds like what I'm after and I already own a Blackbird and Caracal but I want something different than what those ships can offer. I want something that can get up close and personal but won't disintegrate if an enemy looks at it the wrong way. Doing some research, it sounds like a Blaster-equipped Moa is what I'm looking for and a quick check of ship prices and skills needed shows that it's definitely doable.

Slowly I Turned...

2008.06.07 19:18:00

Victim: Winged Nazgul
Corp: Eve University
Alliance: Ivy League
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Merlin
System:
Tintoh
Security: 0.8
Damage Taken: 2375

Involved parties:

Name: Pithi Destructor / Unknown (laid the final blow)
Damage Done:
2375

Destroyed items:

Rudimentary Ship Scanner I, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Small Automated Structural Restoration (Cargo)
Basic Expanded Cargohold
Small Shield Booster I, Qty: 2
Small Energy Neutralizer I, Qty: 2
(Cargo)
Uranium Charge S, Qty: 45
Small Energy Transfer Array I (Cargo)
Expanded Cargohold I
Caldari Cruiser (Cargo)
Sabretooth Light
Missile, Qty: 60
125mm Railgun I

Dropped items:

Sabretooth
Light Missile, Qty: 280 (Cargo)
Small Shield Extender I
Civilian Shield
Booster I
Sheen Compound (Cargo)
Uranium Charge S, Qty: 46
Crystal
Compound (Cargo)
Survey Scanner I, Qty: 4 (Cargo)
Iridium Charge S, Qty:
100 (Cargo)
Salvaging (Cargo)
Ship Scanner I, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Uranium
Charge S, Qty: 154 (Cargo)
Bloodclaw Light Missile, Qty: 1199 (Cargo)
Seeker F.O.F. Light Missile I, Qty: 100 (Cargo)
Limited Memory
Augmentation (Cargo)
Condensed Alloy, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Standard Missile
Launcher I, Qty: 2
Defender I, Qty: 190 (Cargo)
125mm Railgun I

This was my first ever ship to get blown up in Eve. The mission was level 1 Worlds Collide. I learned quite a few things from the experience. The first was, never ever carry anything into a mission that you don't mind getting blown up. You'll see I had two skillbooks I was toting around, Salvaging and Caldari Cruiser. I thought it would be handy to learn the new skills if my training ever ran out in the middle of a mission. I thought wrong.

The second thing is that it's possible to go back to your wreck and get the stuff that survived the explosion. Unfortunately, I didn't learn this until it was too late and I had ended the mission and erased any easy way of finding my wreck again.

The last thing I learned is that I really, really hate Worlds Collide.

So it was with some trepidation that I accepted my first level 4 version of this mission. I had to keep telling myself I wouldn't be going in with some fragile frigate but a battle-hardened battleship this time around. It didn't seem to help. What did help was the online guide talking about possible Overseer spawns and faction loot in the mission. My natural greediness won out in the end.

So I prepared as best as I could and warped off to face my nemesis. I decided to face the Guristas first and maybe save the Serpentis for later. The first room wasn't too bad but I think it was just a setup for what was to come. Warping into the second room, I was treated to the stomach-lurching sight of many red targets seemingly close all around me as well as this huge structure that seemed to block the obvious path away from the hostiles.

Aside from one incident involving the aforementioned structure and my Raven feeling like a sitting duck while I slowly maneuvered around it, I found the Guristas couldn't muster enough DPS to even come close to breaking my tank. The third room was anti-climactic and a total walk in the park by comparison. No rare spawns, though, so I decided to press my luck and try the Serpentis side of the mission. But, first, a salvaging break before the wrecks had a chance to despawn on me. Killing battleships can sometimes be a lengthy affair especially if they pack Defenders like the Serpentis were reported to do.

First room is even easier than the Guristas. I was able to dictate the range and they never came even close enough to damage my shields. The second room, however, was totally different as the initial close range and the stupid War Installation (seriously, whose bright idea was it to place a structure smack dab at warp-in just so you can get hung up on it?) meant that I was tanking some serious damage. In fact, it was perilously close to breaking my tank if I didn't decide to warp out soon. Being as I already was in the positive 16 million just from the bounties alone, I decided discretion was the better part of valor, hightailed it out of there, and turned the mission in.

It's Only a Model!

This is interesting. A post on the Eve-O forums tells of some Eve ship models made up and featured on the Chinese game website. I certainly hope the rest of the world can get their grubby hands on them soon as they look quite nice and the detail is astonishing. A CNR would look quite nice right next to my Figureprints model.

You are not Prepared!

One of the things that is unique about Eve Online is its skill system. Instead of grinding NPC's for experience points, the points come in real-time no matter if you are logged on or not. I personally think it's a brilliant piece of game design. Waiting on an important skill to finish can sometimes make you feel like a kid impatiently waiting on Christmas to get here already.

So it was with this anticipation that I awaited the completion of Drones V. I had brought all the skillbooks that would be unlocked afterwards with visions of Tech II drones dancing over my head. No sooner did that sultry voice inform me that skill training was complete than I immediately launched into learning Gallente Drones I and II. I even did some shopping and picked up a brace of Hammerhead II's for my mission Raven.

So imagine my disappointment when I learnt that I had forgotten there was another pre-req to Tech II light and medium drones, Scout Drone Operation V.

Another 4+ days of training and I'll finally be able to use these darn things. I swear I could hear the Hammerheads chortling as I put them away in a corner of my hangar for now.

In the Beginning...

Yeah, you could say I’ve played World of Warcraft.

In May of this year, I decided to take an extended break from this game. It was turning into something I really wasn’t enjoying much any more. As you can probably tell from that picture, this had more to do with me and my voracious gaming appetite and not really an indictment against the game itself.

I thought I’d found my next MMO to play in Age of Conan. Trying out the Open Beta and then playing it in Retail for a while, it seemed like a MMO that could hold my long-term interest like WoW had. It had enough similarities with my previous game as well as enough edgy differences to set itself apart. But then, bugs and lack of content put a damper on my play. I found myself logging in less and less waiting for the promised bug fixes and additional content.

I don’t know where I got the idea, probably from the Steam icon on my desktop, but I decided to give Eve Online a trial run.

You have to understand; I’ve been gaming for quite a long time and am old enough to have played and overplayed Elite on my Commodore 64. I still can hear the docking song playing in my mind as if it was just yesterday (Blue Danube Waltz by Strauss). So a MMORPG that was said to have been directly inspired by Elite by its creators sure sounded right up my alley.

I was lucky enough to have found a character creation video on YouTube which claimed to give you the best options for a starting character. Otherwise, I confess I would’ve ended up deleting the character and starting over again once I learned enough about the game to make the correct decisions. The fabled steep learning curve began right at the door and, unlike other games, the decisions you made at the onset could come back to bite you if you made the wrong ones.

Doing the tutorials, I had a strong déjà vu feeling. Either this game was really just like Elite or I had trialed it before and had forgotten all about it. Probably the latter and it could explain why my WoW Paladin’s name was already taken when I tried to use it for Eve.

So this blog will chronicle my journey from Eve Online noobdom, among other things. Hope you all enjoy it as much as I do reading all the other Eve blogs out there.