This weekend I spent some time in highsec, for the first time in a couple of months. Ever since moving to Catch, I have remained there, apart from jumping back to a highsec clone to get some skill books. This weekend, however, after consolidating some assets in highsec I decided to go back to Junsoraert and take a lvl4 mission there. The agent made me a nice offer - Recon - so I checked the fitting on my Navy issue Dominix, loaded up some ammo and the right drones and off I went.
Now if you haven't run a highsec mission in a while, there's some stuff you have to get used to again. First: local is full of neutrals. The nullsec habit of continuously checking local doesn't help in highsec, there are neutrals everywhere and they are - most probably - not out to get you. Still, I don't feel comfortable in highsec anymore! To me it feels like a densely populated, run down part of downtown, with groups of shady looking types loitering on street corners. It's most definitely not 'home' anymore.
Second: the amount of damage the mission enemies (NPC enemies) do, is minimal compared to what you can expect in nullsec if you run into the wrong people. Being orbited by a couple of battleships in the Recon mission isn't anything to get worried about, if your Dominix fitted right. But in nullsec, a couple of battleships can chew through your tank in no time. In other words - these lvl4 missions aren't that dangerous, and hence not that exiting either.
The rewards, on the other hand, are plentiful. Yesterday I ran four missions (the three Recon episodes and an Angel Cartel Pirate Invasion) and I earned roughly 36 million ISK, which includes the 4 million I earned with the sale of some expensive salvage. That is 36 million ISK for an essentially risk free excercise!
In Catch, on the other hand, ISK wasn't that easy to make. Of course you could run the Hidden Dens, the Ports etcetera, but bounties were rarely so rich as in these lvl4's. The risk, on the other hand, is very real: losing your vigilance for 20 seconds can mean that, all over sudden, the Port you're soloing is crawling with reds, and you'll be sent home the shortest route possible: by being podded.
Occassionally, you can strike it rich in these nullsec anomalies, by getting an NPC faction enemy, sometimes with nice drops such as BPO's or other expensive stuff. But on the average, I'd say that the risk/reward ratio is currently skewed towards highsec. Need ISK? Run lvl4 missions for a week, virtually risk free, and you're good to go.
Of course, after the anomaly nerf a while ago, many people were saying this, but doing these two missions really showed me, how easy, risk free and - frankly - boring the ISK making process in highsec really is. And how well it pays, to boot..
Monday, August 29, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Eve Online: a tale of two evacuations
Almost a year ago, we founded our corp, No Fixed Abode, and found ourselves a perfect place to live: we joined Saints amongst Sinners alliance and moved to B-7DFU in Querious. We had a good time there, learning much about living in nullsec, PVP, roams, gate camps.. Then things went downhill: IT alliance came under siege and fell apart in quite a spectacular fashion. We had to evacuate our holdings in Querious: everything had to be cyno'd out. Some corp members, having amassed dozens of ships, had to do their utter best to salvage whatever they could before we lost sov. Some cyno pilots flew many, many hours to get the job done.
Fast forward a few months later. We left SaS after a while because we didn't agree with the alliance's post Querious long term strategy, and we're now part of LEGIO alliance. LEGIO owns four systems in Catch, as part of the -A- ecosystem. Of course we settle in our new home, we get to fly through HED-GP, scene of famous battles and generally have a good time in nullsec once again. And then the Russians show up. The DRF takes HED-GP, and again we begin to evacuate. And again, some members have gathered dozens of ships out there! And a Rorqual which we want to save, of course. And a POS which has to be disassembled and shipped out. Again we have to work like mad, lighting cyno's and losing cyno frigs left and right.
I have learned my lesson: from now on, I am going to 'travel lightly'. Get the ships you need, but not too much. Gather the stuff you need, but transfer valuable stuff out to highsec or NPC nullsec when you have a chance. In Eve Online, the lines on the map shift every day, and no one in nullsec can be sure they will be in the same location six months from now. Having lots of posessions in nullsec can quickly become a burden..
Fast forward a few months later. We left SaS after a while because we didn't agree with the alliance's post Querious long term strategy, and we're now part of LEGIO alliance. LEGIO owns four systems in Catch, as part of the -A- ecosystem. Of course we settle in our new home, we get to fly through HED-GP, scene of famous battles and generally have a good time in nullsec once again. And then the Russians show up. The DRF takes HED-GP, and again we begin to evacuate. And again, some members have gathered dozens of ships out there! And a Rorqual which we want to save, of course. And a POS which has to be disassembled and shipped out. Again we have to work like mad, lighting cyno's and losing cyno frigs left and right.
I have learned my lesson: from now on, I am going to 'travel lightly'. Get the ships you need, but not too much. Gather the stuff you need, but transfer valuable stuff out to highsec or NPC nullsec when you have a chance. In Eve Online, the lines on the map shift every day, and no one in nullsec can be sure they will be in the same location six months from now. Having lots of posessions in nullsec can quickly become a burden..
Sunday, June 26, 2011
CCP: bad luck and derp
I am employed in the IT sector, and have been building and maintaining a mission critical, internet facing transaction application for about five years now. Back in the day I helped configure the first servers and today I'm still involved in maintaining and expanding the system.
Over the past five years, we've seen intense debates between us the IT guys, project management and the business. We (IT) would demand that existing bugs be fixed first, we would wave with Service Level Agreements and point out we really ought to improve stability and performance, right now. The business guys, on the other hand, would claim that new feature 'x' was crucial in getting the important (read: lucrative) customers on board; their sales guys were complaining about losing those to competitors who already had feature 'x'.
It's a good thing that our customer base is unaware of the nature of these discussions. Whatever is decided, something's got to give! If we fix existing bugs first, users have to wait for that all important new feature 'x'. But if we build 'x' first, users will have to cope with that sluggish, unstable, buggy part of the application a little while longer..
After CCP's internal newsletter 'Fearless' was leaked to the media earlier this week, one of the first things that went through my mind was: I am just so happy that none of the brainstorming we do at our company, has hit the street like this! It would make some headlines for sure, and could have grave consequences to our company. No customer likes to read how their concerns and interests (never mind the money they are paying us!) are - sometimes cynically - being balanced against someone elses', especially not if they end up on the losing side of the equation.
My point is, that behind company walls each company discusses stuff they would never ever share with their customer base - at least not in the way it was originally phrased or written, for an internal audience only. As such I'm feeling sorry for CCP that an internal piece of communication, intended to get a discussion going, got leaked at this unfortunate time.
A while ago, several of our customers grew increasingly irritated with us, when performance and stability issues manifested themselves more and more (and yes, feature 'x' got built first). Guess who got to go and visit them? Why, yours truly of course! During those sometimes tense meetings I have discovered that it's almost always possible to clear the air by being open. Acknowledge any justified complaints without presenting weak or far fetched excuses, be honest and fortright about what's going on. Of course you have to strike a careful balance, you can't disparage the company or your own colleagues - but be as honest as reasonably possible. Almost always, the relation between the company and the customer will improve as a result.
In this area, CCP has shown remarkably little competence over the past week. After 'Fearless' leaked, they could have disarmed the whole ticking time bomb within an hour by simply restating their previous promise - done only a week ago - that microtransactions would not be allowed to disrupt existing gameplay, and that this opinion piece was just to get an internal discussion going. Even an announcement of when we could expect an answer would have helped, but all we got was silence. They waited for what, more than two days? And then they published a dev blog which totally failed to address the most pressing issues. An astounding case of self inflicted PR wounds, if you ask me; I cannot for the life of me come up with a sane reason to explain CCP's behaviour in the past week. No mature company would act like this, faced with a looming public relations disaster of this magnitude.
Sometimes we tend to forget that companies like CCP and Second Life's Linden Labs are still quite young, as an organisation. I wonder how mature they really are? They grow rapidly, venture cash pours in, offices abroad are opened, staff comes and goes, and at the same time they get go cope with a large, critical and vocal user base within a few years' time. It's hardly a surprise that, under these circumstances, a derp of epic proportions occasionally happens. But, in times of turmoil and massive customer dissatisfaction they will quickly learn the lessons they need to learn - the hard way - or they will not survive. Like my father says: 'growing up sometimes hurts'.
Over the past five years, we've seen intense debates between us the IT guys, project management and the business. We (IT) would demand that existing bugs be fixed first, we would wave with Service Level Agreements and point out we really ought to improve stability and performance, right now. The business guys, on the other hand, would claim that new feature 'x' was crucial in getting the important (read: lucrative) customers on board; their sales guys were complaining about losing those to competitors who already had feature 'x'.
It's a good thing that our customer base is unaware of the nature of these discussions. Whatever is decided, something's got to give! If we fix existing bugs first, users have to wait for that all important new feature 'x'. But if we build 'x' first, users will have to cope with that sluggish, unstable, buggy part of the application a little while longer..
After CCP's internal newsletter 'Fearless' was leaked to the media earlier this week, one of the first things that went through my mind was: I am just so happy that none of the brainstorming we do at our company, has hit the street like this! It would make some headlines for sure, and could have grave consequences to our company. No customer likes to read how their concerns and interests (never mind the money they are paying us!) are - sometimes cynically - being balanced against someone elses', especially not if they end up on the losing side of the equation.
My point is, that behind company walls each company discusses stuff they would never ever share with their customer base - at least not in the way it was originally phrased or written, for an internal audience only. As such I'm feeling sorry for CCP that an internal piece of communication, intended to get a discussion going, got leaked at this unfortunate time.
A while ago, several of our customers grew increasingly irritated with us, when performance and stability issues manifested themselves more and more (and yes, feature 'x' got built first). Guess who got to go and visit them? Why, yours truly of course! During those sometimes tense meetings I have discovered that it's almost always possible to clear the air by being open. Acknowledge any justified complaints without presenting weak or far fetched excuses, be honest and fortright about what's going on. Of course you have to strike a careful balance, you can't disparage the company or your own colleagues - but be as honest as reasonably possible. Almost always, the relation between the company and the customer will improve as a result.
In this area, CCP has shown remarkably little competence over the past week. After 'Fearless' leaked, they could have disarmed the whole ticking time bomb within an hour by simply restating their previous promise - done only a week ago - that microtransactions would not be allowed to disrupt existing gameplay, and that this opinion piece was just to get an internal discussion going. Even an announcement of when we could expect an answer would have helped, but all we got was silence. They waited for what, more than two days? And then they published a dev blog which totally failed to address the most pressing issues. An astounding case of self inflicted PR wounds, if you ask me; I cannot for the life of me come up with a sane reason to explain CCP's behaviour in the past week. No mature company would act like this, faced with a looming public relations disaster of this magnitude. Sometimes we tend to forget that companies like CCP and Second Life's Linden Labs are still quite young, as an organisation. I wonder how mature they really are? They grow rapidly, venture cash pours in, offices abroad are opened, staff comes and goes, and at the same time they get go cope with a large, critical and vocal user base within a few years' time. It's hardly a surprise that, under these circumstances, a derp of epic proportions occasionally happens. But, in times of turmoil and massive customer dissatisfaction they will quickly learn the lessons they need to learn - the hard way - or they will not survive. Like my father says: 'growing up sometimes hurts'.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Two minutes hate: not unique to Eve Online
Before I started playing Eve Online, I was a Second Life resident. I got quite involved, too, reading blogs, forums and such. I was blogging, too, and in January 2008 I wrote this item: The Bitching Base. A few quotes:
It's a strange phenomenon which I have now witnessed a few times: a critical, vocal user base who, provoked by a game studio's actions, goes into full rage mode. What follows is a stampede of anger, a feeding frenzy of hate and verbal violence against the developers of their game.
Like I wrote in 2008, it's perfectly possible that the complaints themselves are justified, that's not the point here. It's the seething anger which I don't get.
But I am working on that, I have a 'Dr. Phil' theory! Often the most vocal users are the ones who are the most passionate about the game. They are deeply involved, they care, it is a big part of their life. But in the end, they are just users like everybody else - and the developer can, if they so chose, do whatever they like to the users' beloved game. Users who deeply care, who are committed, are - in the end - powerless to stop a development they deem (very) objectionable. There's a lot of potential for frustration and anger there, as impotent users rail at a game studio who really can't be stopped.
Second Life survived the turmoil of 2008 and 2009 and turned 8 years old recently. According to their own claims, Linden Labs had the best quarter in their company history in 2011. It's going to be interesting to see whether CCP can survive the current onslaught of community anger.
(edited for spelling and clarity - Sered)
One of the things that's really wearing me down, is the incessant bitching that can be found in certain parts of the SL userbase. Whatever Linden Labs does or doesn't, there's always complaints - usually quite vitriolic, and there's no boundaries to the ignorance or malice that will be ascribed to Linden Labs.
Either someone is complaining about ancient graphics, or someone is complaining about Windlights' greed for grapics computing power, is only about 'pretty' - or how a skin doesn't look perfect in it.Read 'Eve Online' for 'Second Life' and 'CCP' for 'Linden Labs' and we have the exact same story in the Eve Online community, a few years later. There are really quite a few parallels between the introduction of 'Windlight' to SL and now Captains' Quarters in Eve. In both cases, the release of an improvement deemed critical by the game studio, infuriated an already dissatisfied part of the userbase. And later, in 2009 when Linden Labs changed the rules on prims and tier, again the user base exploded with rage against a developer accussed of 'not caring' and 'being after the money'- much as a part of Eve Online's userbase now says about CCP.
Either someone is complaining about how LL suffocates freedom in SL by instituting more and more rules, or someone else is complaining about how the lack of law enforcement or oversight enables fraudsters to steal thousands of Lindens from gullible residents.
Linden Labs always communicates too late, too early, not explicit enough, too explicit, at the wrong location, to the wrong people, didn't invite the right people, invited everyone but meeee, doesn't care about Second Life they only care about ... On and on it goes, often in the comments to blogpost at Second Life as well.
It's a strange phenomenon which I have now witnessed a few times: a critical, vocal user base who, provoked by a game studio's actions, goes into full rage mode. What follows is a stampede of anger, a feeding frenzy of hate and verbal violence against the developers of their game.
Like I wrote in 2008, it's perfectly possible that the complaints themselves are justified, that's not the point here. It's the seething anger which I don't get.
But I am working on that, I have a 'Dr. Phil' theory! Often the most vocal users are the ones who are the most passionate about the game. They are deeply involved, they care, it is a big part of their life. But in the end, they are just users like everybody else - and the developer can, if they so chose, do whatever they like to the users' beloved game. Users who deeply care, who are committed, are - in the end - powerless to stop a development they deem (very) objectionable. There's a lot of potential for frustration and anger there, as impotent users rail at a game studio who really can't be stopped.Second Life survived the turmoil of 2008 and 2009 and turned 8 years old recently. According to their own claims, Linden Labs had the best quarter in their company history in 2011. It's going to be interesting to see whether CCP can survive the current onslaught of community anger.
(edited for spelling and clarity - Sered)
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Eve Online: Fighting the Darkside.
On June 20th, prime EU TZ, a lot of roaming gangs were going through our part of space . It was clear we couldn't do anything against them without assembling enough pilots and get them organized properly. Pretty soon we arranged what was needed, and we were ready for a fight!
We started camping one of the gates leading into our space, and soon afer, a sizeable Darkside. alliance fleet jumped in. Those of you who have followed recent Eve Online Alliance Tournaments, know that Darkside. is a very capable PVP alliance and to be honest, I wasn't all that disappointed when they returned to a neigbouring system after bouncing off our station :)
But then something weird happened: another hostile fleet - don't remember who, to be honest - met the Darkside. roaming gang in that neighbouring system, and did a bombing run on them. After taking some losses from the bombers, the Darkside. fleet returned to us and of course they wanted to exit via the gate we were camping..
At first a lonely Darkside. ship warped to the gate and started burning away from us. He got locked, webbed and scrambled soon enough and died in a hail of missiles and drone damage. One kill! Yay! As soon as he died, however, the rest of the Darkside. fleet landed on the other side of us, and our fleet commander started calling primary and secondary targets, concentrating on their logistics ships first. For those of you who don't play Eve: logistics ships are capable of repairing the damage you do to their companions. As such you really want them dead first!
Now our corp, NOFAD, has been fighting Darkside. fleets in Querious before and I remember this: it proved very difficult to break their logistics tank. Same thing happened here: assuming we all followed the FC's orders we should have been throwing impressive amounts of damage to their logistics, but the impact was almost negligble. They, on the other hand, succeeded in killing our logistics!
This was when ee started dying: the fact that we couldn't break their logistics while they successfully destroyed ours tipped the battle in their favor. After some hectic fighting, the other hostile bomber fleet arrived as well and we were forced to leave the field. At this point I was scrammed and couldn't get out fast enough, so my Drake was toast as well.
All in all I think we scored one kill, but lost about a dozen ships, perhaps a bit more - but it's hard to reconstruct, given that our alliance killboard has been offline for a while now. Painful of course, but we fought organised and prepared, like we should have. There's not much more to do than analyse the losses, learn from them and do better next time.
We started camping one of the gates leading into our space, and soon afer, a sizeable Darkside. alliance fleet jumped in. Those of you who have followed recent Eve Online Alliance Tournaments, know that Darkside. is a very capable PVP alliance and to be honest, I wasn't all that disappointed when they returned to a neigbouring system after bouncing off our station :)
But then something weird happened: another hostile fleet - don't remember who, to be honest - met the Darkside. roaming gang in that neighbouring system, and did a bombing run on them. After taking some losses from the bombers, the Darkside. fleet returned to us and of course they wanted to exit via the gate we were camping..
At first a lonely Darkside. ship warped to the gate and started burning away from us. He got locked, webbed and scrambled soon enough and died in a hail of missiles and drone damage. One kill! Yay! As soon as he died, however, the rest of the Darkside. fleet landed on the other side of us, and our fleet commander started calling primary and secondary targets, concentrating on their logistics ships first. For those of you who don't play Eve: logistics ships are capable of repairing the damage you do to their companions. As such you really want them dead first!
Now our corp, NOFAD, has been fighting Darkside. fleets in Querious before and I remember this: it proved very difficult to break their logistics tank. Same thing happened here: assuming we all followed the FC's orders we should have been throwing impressive amounts of damage to their logistics, but the impact was almost negligble. They, on the other hand, succeeded in killing our logistics!
This was when ee started dying: the fact that we couldn't break their logistics while they successfully destroyed ours tipped the battle in their favor. After some hectic fighting, the other hostile bomber fleet arrived as well and we were forced to leave the field. At this point I was scrammed and couldn't get out fast enough, so my Drake was toast as well.
All in all I think we scored one kill, but lost about a dozen ships, perhaps a bit more - but it's hard to reconstruct, given that our alliance killboard has been offline for a while now. Painful of course, but we fought organised and prepared, like we should have. There's not much more to do than analyse the losses, learn from them and do better next time.
Incarna: full body avatars in Eve Online
On June 21st, CCP released their next expansion called 'Incarna', which - after talking about it for years - allows New Eden's pod pilots to get out of their ships and stretch their legs. Full body avatars in New Eden, finally! Of course I took my women out for a walk:
To be honest, I also have snapshots of my male characters, but the women just look better! More pictures available here on Koinup.
Functionally, Incarna is quite limited at the moment; there's not much to do in your captain's quarters, besides watching the news and accessing some ship functionality. But as a first step towards a full blown virtual universe - with avatars living and fighting in space ships and stations, but also on planets - it is a very important release nonetheless.
In the hangar, ships are still spinning! Obviously it isn't the same as the old 'ship spinning' that capsuleers used to do, but for me this is sufficient: you can stand on the bridge of the captain's quarter and see your ship from all sides.
Improvements to Incarna could be made, of course, and I expect they will. Camera movement, although praised by Kirith Kodachi, is counter intuitive to me: I want the camera to turn with the avatar. As a human, you also tend to look in the direction you walk, and's weird that this does not happen in Incarna. The lighting is still missing a bit: it's too dark in my quarters, to my taste. But, I have to admit the dark atmosphere does fit - visually and mood wise - in Eve Online. Finally, CCP succeeded in delivering a vastly better tuned Captains' Quarters when compared with the previous test version on Duality: this one is actually playable on my laptop. But I suspect more improvement in this area is still needed: the performance is not what it should be, yet.
I am happy with this first step, and I look forward to the coming Incarna releases which will hopefully fix some issues but also expand the number of accesible spaces. I still want to visit that seedy space bar!
Oh - before I forget.. I am aware that there's a lot of controversy between CCP and a part of their customer base, surrounding this release. Some pilots just hate Incarna on principle; others are angry because of the way microtransactions are currently implemented (too expensive); others are raging mad about stuff said in a PDF that may or may not have come from CCP. For now, even though some of the microtransaction stuff worries me - no game changing mt please! - I'm not going to wade into that lynch mob until I have heard from CCP themselves.
To be honest, I also have snapshots of my male characters, but the women just look better! More pictures available here on Koinup.
Functionally, Incarna is quite limited at the moment; there's not much to do in your captain's quarters, besides watching the news and accessing some ship functionality. But as a first step towards a full blown virtual universe - with avatars living and fighting in space ships and stations, but also on planets - it is a very important release nonetheless.
In the hangar, ships are still spinning! Obviously it isn't the same as the old 'ship spinning' that capsuleers used to do, but for me this is sufficient: you can stand on the bridge of the captain's quarter and see your ship from all sides.
Improvements to Incarna could be made, of course, and I expect they will. Camera movement, although praised by Kirith Kodachi, is counter intuitive to me: I want the camera to turn with the avatar. As a human, you also tend to look in the direction you walk, and's weird that this does not happen in Incarna. The lighting is still missing a bit: it's too dark in my quarters, to my taste. But, I have to admit the dark atmosphere does fit - visually and mood wise - in Eve Online. Finally, CCP succeeded in delivering a vastly better tuned Captains' Quarters when compared with the previous test version on Duality: this one is actually playable on my laptop. But I suspect more improvement in this area is still needed: the performance is not what it should be, yet.
I am happy with this first step, and I look forward to the coming Incarna releases which will hopefully fix some issues but also expand the number of accesible spaces. I still want to visit that seedy space bar!
Oh - before I forget.. I am aware that there's a lot of controversy between CCP and a part of their customer base, surrounding this release. Some pilots just hate Incarna on principle; others are angry because of the way microtransactions are currently implemented (too expensive); others are raging mad about stuff said in a PDF that may or may not have come from CCP. For now, even though some of the microtransaction stuff worries me - no game changing mt please! - I'm not going to wade into that lynch mob until I have heard from CCP themselves.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
New Eve Online Incarna test on Duality
Duality, the still new test environment for Eve Online, is once again open for a new round of testing, and, as before, we get to try the new Incarna feature 'Captain's Quarters'. Yesterday I spent some time on it, and while I am happy to finally see more of Walking in Stations Ambulation Incarna, it doesn't look like it's finished yet.
On the first login, my avatar was awkwardly positioned with his arms wide. Walking didn't work, he more or les slid over the floor. Logging off and on fixed this!
The second session proved to be better, as my avatar worked as expected. As I walked towards the bridge, I noticed an issue with camera movement. Usually, in other virtual worlds, the camera moves with you (the avatar), meaning that if you turn to walk in a different direction, the camera point of view also automatically moves. The camera is, at all times, automatically looking in the direction where you (the avatar) is moving or facing. That doesn't currently happen on Duality! This makes walking a bit awkward, until you manually switch the camera point of view again. I wonder if this will be fixed when Incarna goes live.
Visually, the whole environment looked distinctively grainy. It was like watching an old color tv, at times! An other tester advised me to set the graphics setting for the interior environment to 'low', and this indeed fixed it. With the grainyness out of the way, I have to say the captain's quarters themselves looked better than the previous test run. There was more light, and more little details that made it look like someone was really living there: random stuff strewn here and there in the room. And, compared to the previous Duality test, the ship sizes in the hangar have been adjusted. Even a frigate is now a real presence in the ship hangar.
Very nice: the holograpic menus which appear when you click on the holographic ship models. We've seen similar menus in CCP trailers for quite some time; good to finally see them playable on Duality:
One of the other things I noticed, is that the Duality client is quite the memory hog. I am using an ATI HD Radeon 3800 series GPU on a Windows 7 machine with 2 GB RAM, and the Duality client maxed out at 995 MB RAM.. mainly because I simply didn't have more RAM available. Other testers reported seeing memory usage of up to 2 GB. I know very well that the current Duality release is not optimized yet - as CCP has repeatedly stated - but if they want to release this on June 21st, they have a lot of optimizing to do in this regard.
Finally, there's still some work to do on the avatar themselves. Especially in the neck and face, sometimes the textures show. It may have to do with a memory shortage though.
There's real progress visible on Duality today, but CCP still has a lot of work to do. Incarna should be released on June 21, which is in about three weeks.. My guess is some CCP devs will be burning the midnight oil before then!
All snapshots of this second Duality tests can be found on my Koinup page.
On the first login, my avatar was awkwardly positioned with his arms wide. Walking didn't work, he more or les slid over the floor. Logging off and on fixed this!
The second session proved to be better, as my avatar worked as expected. As I walked towards the bridge, I noticed an issue with camera movement. Usually, in other virtual worlds, the camera moves with you (the avatar), meaning that if you turn to walk in a different direction, the camera point of view also automatically moves. The camera is, at all times, automatically looking in the direction where you (the avatar) is moving or facing. That doesn't currently happen on Duality! This makes walking a bit awkward, until you manually switch the camera point of view again. I wonder if this will be fixed when Incarna goes live.
Visually, the whole environment looked distinctively grainy. It was like watching an old color tv, at times! An other tester advised me to set the graphics setting for the interior environment to 'low', and this indeed fixed it. With the grainyness out of the way, I have to say the captain's quarters themselves looked better than the previous test run. There was more light, and more little details that made it look like someone was really living there: random stuff strewn here and there in the room. And, compared to the previous Duality test, the ship sizes in the hangar have been adjusted. Even a frigate is now a real presence in the ship hangar.
Very nice: the holograpic menus which appear when you click on the holographic ship models. We've seen similar menus in CCP trailers for quite some time; good to finally see them playable on Duality:
One of the other things I noticed, is that the Duality client is quite the memory hog. I am using an ATI HD Radeon 3800 series GPU on a Windows 7 machine with 2 GB RAM, and the Duality client maxed out at 995 MB RAM.. mainly because I simply didn't have more RAM available. Other testers reported seeing memory usage of up to 2 GB. I know very well that the current Duality release is not optimized yet - as CCP has repeatedly stated - but if they want to release this on June 21st, they have a lot of optimizing to do in this regard.
Finally, there's still some work to do on the avatar themselves. Especially in the neck and face, sometimes the textures show. It may have to do with a memory shortage though.
There's real progress visible on Duality today, but CCP still has a lot of work to do. Incarna should be released on June 21, which is in about three weeks.. My guess is some CCP devs will be burning the midnight oil before then!
All snapshots of this second Duality tests can be found on my Koinup page.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Eve Online Agents: now with 25% less annoyance!
..and why this is actually a bad thing, in my opinion.
For the most part of my Eve 'career' (2008-2010 actually) I have been a highsec mission runner. I didn't like mining or courier stuff, nullsec was impenetrable (or so I thought) so I remained in highsec, gradually working my way up the agent standings ladder, shooting Serpentis and such. Every now and then, I'd run out of suitable missions, as my favorite Gallente agents provided me with missions against Caldari or Amarr which I rejected in order to keep a positive enough standing with them, or mining missions which I rejected on principle.
In some ways, this was a good thing. Not having a 'Damsel in distress' to run, forced me out of my comfort zone into trying new stuff such as exploration, trading, or joining corp mates for more difficult missions or complexes. New Eden is a harsh and often unpredictable, volatile universe; suck it up and try something else!
Now that agent divisions will be removed, however, pilots such as myself around 2009 can remain safely and snugly within their comfort zone, running the same missions over and over again without surprises. And reading from the earlier devblog on the subject, I gather that the payouts may even become slightly higher as well, so permanently cuddling up to that special agent of yours is looking more and more attractive. So - more predictability and less surprises, less incentive to change and evolve, and higher rewards.
In the short term, this may look like a positive development for the PVE pilots, but with one incentive to change your habits every now and then removed from the game, boredom might become a real issue, real fast.
Where I live in nullsec, there's no Sanctums, after the last nerf. We're still doing ok, but there's a real loss of income for some. And highsec just became a much more predictable, with stable sources of income guaranteed.. To be honest, I'm not sure what CCP is trying to accomplish here.
For the most part of my Eve 'career' (2008-2010 actually) I have been a highsec mission runner. I didn't like mining or courier stuff, nullsec was impenetrable (or so I thought) so I remained in highsec, gradually working my way up the agent standings ladder, shooting Serpentis and such. Every now and then, I'd run out of suitable missions, as my favorite Gallente agents provided me with missions against Caldari or Amarr which I rejected in order to keep a positive enough standing with them, or mining missions which I rejected on principle.
In some ways, this was a good thing. Not having a 'Damsel in distress' to run, forced me out of my comfort zone into trying new stuff such as exploration, trading, or joining corp mates for more difficult missions or complexes. New Eden is a harsh and often unpredictable, volatile universe; suck it up and try something else!
Now that agent divisions will be removed, however, pilots such as myself around 2009 can remain safely and snugly within their comfort zone, running the same missions over and over again without surprises. And reading from the earlier devblog on the subject, I gather that the payouts may even become slightly higher as well, so permanently cuddling up to that special agent of yours is looking more and more attractive. So - more predictability and less surprises, less incentive to change and evolve, and higher rewards.
In the short term, this may look like a positive development for the PVE pilots, but with one incentive to change your habits every now and then removed from the game, boredom might become a real issue, real fast.
Where I live in nullsec, there's no Sanctums, after the last nerf. We're still doing ok, but there's a real loss of income for some. And highsec just became a much more predictable, with stable sources of income guaranteed.. To be honest, I'm not sure what CCP is trying to accomplish here.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Catch
It's been a while since I mentioned my whereabouts here. After leaving Saints amongst Sinners alliance, NOFAD went searching for a new place to stay. Highsec is fine as a temporary residence, but nullsec is where we want to be! It took us a while and we contemplated several options and offers, before we applied for membership of LEGIO: the Legio Astartes Arcanum alliance, which is part of the -A- environment.
NOFAD has never been much of a politically aligned corporation, although it seems most members are no big fans of the NC or DC. In Querious we belonged to the IT bloc, and here in Catch we are part of the -A- ecosystem - we don't really mind. The weird coincidence is, that our old stomping grounds in Querious - B-7DFU and surroundings to which we lost access when IT fell apart - are now again blue to us!
Life in Catch is different from Querious, but we're having fun and are happy to be out of highsec again!
NOFAD has never been much of a politically aligned corporation, although it seems most members are no big fans of the NC or DC. In Querious we belonged to the IT bloc, and here in Catch we are part of the -A- ecosystem - we don't really mind. The weird coincidence is, that our old stomping grounds in Querious - B-7DFU and surroundings to which we lost access when IT fell apart - are now again blue to us!
Life in Catch is different from Querious, but we're having fun and are happy to be out of highsec again!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Eve Online: leaving SAS Alliance
Our corp, No Fixed Abode, has left the Saints amongst Sinners alliance – SAS – last weekend. When we were looking for a spot in nullsec, they generously provided us with one in Querious. We were welcomed, gear was cyno’d in, guidance and instructions were given and alliance chat/TS was friendly. I felt welcome, at home! Of course the ratting was great: in a few months’ time, I made over a billion ISK in bounties, loot and salvage even though I’m only a modest solo belt ratter, occassionally doing a Sanctum or Haven with other pilots. But I also liked the excitement of PVP, scrambling to the gate to intercept an incoming roam of reds, frantic instructions on TS and the SAFE UP! warnings in alliance chat to all miners out there, accompanied by exhortions to get in the home defense fleet, grab a pvp ship and join the battle. It was a good – and sometimes dangerous – time to be in Querious.
SAS was there as an IT renter, and when IT failscaded, we were on our own. By that time we were IT allies, not just renters anymore: just before IT bowed out they upgraded us, and for a while we held nullsec sov without paying rent. But pressure was mounting, and after some painful losses the number of pilots in alliance chat already started to drop- slowly but steadily. The miners and industrialists vanished to highsec and several of them dropped out altogether, and pretty soon there were only a few dozen stalwarts left in B-7DFU to defend the place. The downward trend was partially masked by Querious nullsec corps joining SAS, which we absorbed when IT collapsed, but it was real nonetheless.
It became obvious we couldn’t defend the entire constellation we had sov in – not with Goons, Atlas., -A- and PL knocking at our door. After some diplomatic efforts and leadership deliberations, alliance leadership announced a complete evacuation of our Querious holdings. In hindsight, I’m not sure that was the right thing to do. Of course it’s easy to say that now, but even at the time some of us thought we should try to hang on to B-7DFU a while longer. It’s a dead end system, with a truesec of -1 and a station in it, and hence easier to defend than most systems. Why not make a last stand, try to keep it as long as you can, and go down in flames if everything fails? It could have taken weeks to clear us out of B-7DFU if we’d hadn’t given up. The political situation changes so fast – you never know what could have happened in that time.
..And looking at Evemaps, it seems B-7DFU is deserted at the moment. It has plenty of sites to run - havens, sanctums - and plenty of belts with battleship class rats.. and now, on March 17th 2011, only 5 NPC kills in the last 24 hours? Is that the best you could do, C0nvicted? Really, we shouldn't have left our Querious home..
But, when alliance leadership tells you to evacuate, you evacuate, and SAS ended up spread out over the entire cluster, waiting for what’s next. And then, SAS leadership decided to go back home, to the place SAS became what it is today: the lowsec triangle in Solitude, consisting of Aeter, Sarline and Harner systems. Of course other people live there, but it was decided we’d fight them.
NOFAD consists of what is called ‘mature players’; we even discuss our teenage kids’ exploits in corp chat ;-) We have played together for several years, we are not likely to switch alliances easily. But, I have written enough about Lowsec a short while ago.. suffice to say NOFAD didn’t like being in Solitude. We would never have contemplated leaving SAS if there had been a plan to go back to nullsec in the foreseeable future, but at the time of our leaving, it was unclear whether SAS would attempt another shot at nullsec in 2011. In New Eden, planning something three quarters to a year from now, is really a long time, it’s an eternity! We didn’t fancy spending that many months of game time in lowsec. And so, over the weekend, we left SAS. We wish them well; they really were the best thing that could have happened to us and for that we are certainly grateful.
In the mean time, we are evaluating some offers we received for other nullsec places to stay. Highsec has lost it’s charm, it’s no longer a permanent residence for us. We loathe lowsec; it’s nullsec we want to be, and that’s where we’re going again.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Eve Online: Lowsec doesn't make sense
As I mentioned here before, I have spent most of my Eve career in highsec empire space (2008-2010), and the last six months in nullsec. After leaving Querious, however, we (temporarily) relocated to lowsec. I have now, for the first time in my eve career, lived in lowsec for a while, and boy it sucks. It's like nullsec without the advantages of sov; it's like highsec without the advantages of Concord protection. Allow me to elaborate..
If you're looking for PVP, lowsec is not the best place to be, as shooting someone brings a hefty security standings hit - unless the other side engaged you first. And yet, if that happens - someone engages you - there's no Concord protection, at least none to speak of. These factors combined lead to a situation where the only ones freely engaging in PVP are lowsec pirates: they don't care about security standing and the lack of Concord protection suits them just fine.
If you're looking for some ratting, lowsec isn't the best place to be either. Sure, there are some battleship class rats here and there, but generally it's still just frigates and cruisers, with poor bounties. Earlier this week I even found myself looting a Civilian Shield Booster module from a cruiser sized wreck.. For shame! For crying out loud! I have seen one belt rat with a 1.1 million ISK bounty, in the past few weeks. There's quite a gap between nullsec and lowsec in this regard, even though some lowsec systems have a truesec that's quite close to some nullsec systems.
If you're looking for mining, lowsec may have something to offer - as I don't mine I can't really tell. I haven't taken a thorough survey, but as far as I can see it's mostly just the regular space rocks around here: Veldspar, Plagioclase, Scordite, Omber.. To be fair, according to Dotlan there should also be some Jaspet and Hemorphite around, but I am not sure how much and how valuable that is. According to a miner friend of mine however, in terms of isk/hour it's more profitable to mine Veldspar in highsec. Especially given the added risk of mining in lowsec. if you decide to do it, you need to have some sort of guard around: unless you have essentially cleared out the area and maintain some kind of protection, one of those dratted pirates might pop you at any moment.
The same is essentially true for running missions and complexes in lowsec - you need to be very alert, because you may be attacked at any moment. An added risk, when you could be doing pretty much the same missions in highsec?
Now that I mention them - complexes - that's another chapter. I've scanned down four, and they were either laughingly simple (frigates with a cruiser or battlecruiser as 'endboss') or impossible to do on your own (think 10+ battleships shooting at my lonely poor Drake). There didn't seem to be much of a middle ground.
So - PVP impeded by a security standings penalty but no Concord protection to compensate for that; ratting generally not impressive in terms of excitement and/or isk earned per hour; complexes questionable and seemingly a bit out of balance; mining risky and not really worth it according to those in the know.
Tell me - why would anyone want to live here? If you do, what's your motivation? What have I missed?
If you're looking for PVP, lowsec is not the best place to be, as shooting someone brings a hefty security standings hit - unless the other side engaged you first. And yet, if that happens - someone engages you - there's no Concord protection, at least none to speak of. These factors combined lead to a situation where the only ones freely engaging in PVP are lowsec pirates: they don't care about security standing and the lack of Concord protection suits them just fine.
If you're looking for some ratting, lowsec isn't the best place to be either. Sure, there are some battleship class rats here and there, but generally it's still just frigates and cruisers, with poor bounties. Earlier this week I even found myself looting a Civilian Shield Booster module from a cruiser sized wreck.. For shame! For crying out loud! I have seen one belt rat with a 1.1 million ISK bounty, in the past few weeks. There's quite a gap between nullsec and lowsec in this regard, even though some lowsec systems have a truesec that's quite close to some nullsec systems.
If you're looking for mining, lowsec may have something to offer - as I don't mine I can't really tell. I haven't taken a thorough survey, but as far as I can see it's mostly just the regular space rocks around here: Veldspar, Plagioclase, Scordite, Omber.. To be fair, according to Dotlan there should also be some Jaspet and Hemorphite around, but I am not sure how much and how valuable that is. According to a miner friend of mine however, in terms of isk/hour it's more profitable to mine Veldspar in highsec. Especially given the added risk of mining in lowsec. if you decide to do it, you need to have some sort of guard around: unless you have essentially cleared out the area and maintain some kind of protection, one of those dratted pirates might pop you at any moment.
The same is essentially true for running missions and complexes in lowsec - you need to be very alert, because you may be attacked at any moment. An added risk, when you could be doing pretty much the same missions in highsec?
Now that I mention them - complexes - that's another chapter. I've scanned down four, and they were either laughingly simple (frigates with a cruiser or battlecruiser as 'endboss') or impossible to do on your own (think 10+ battleships shooting at my lonely poor Drake). There didn't seem to be much of a middle ground.
So - PVP impeded by a security standings penalty but no Concord protection to compensate for that; ratting generally not impressive in terms of excitement and/or isk earned per hour; complexes questionable and seemingly a bit out of balance; mining risky and not really worth it according to those in the know.
Tell me - why would anyone want to live here? If you do, what's your motivation? What have I missed?
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
EVE Blog Banter #25 - Size does matter
Welcome to the twenty-fifth installment of the EVE Blog Banter , the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux . The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's topic comes to us from @Tetraetc - " Tetra's EVE Blog " - who asks: " Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modifcation of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?"
I don't feel like an expert on this topic, to be honest. But having just spent six months in nullsec, it's of interest nonetheless, so here are my thoughts.
Alliances - good
Nullsec without alliances.. not going to happen. Whether the game mechanics support it or not, there will always be groups of pilots 'with an understanding', there will be blue/red lists on forums. You can't remove that from New Eden, whether you like it or not.
Alliances in itself aren't a problem, really. I have found it very useful to be in Saints amongst Sinners alliance; our corp couldn't have entered nullsec without their help. Alliances are a great way of introducing pilots to nullsec and maintain some sort of stability in a certain area of space.
Large alliances - not so good..
It's this 'certain area of space' that is becoming a problem in my opinion. The large power blocs (consisting of a multitude of alliances and corps) with powerful (super)cap fleets are often able to project power across large parts of the cluster, by utilizing cynos and jump bridges. They can be on your doorstep, kill your POS for lolz, if they so desire - and unless you have an equally powerful cap fleet, there's not much you can do but keep systems cynojammed 24x7, which is a nuisance in itself. Even without supercaps, the large power blocs have accumulated so much wealth they can keep throwing stealth bombers and conventional fleets at you, without bleeding dry anytime soon.
No viable nullsec sov for smaller entities
In other words, a smaller corp or alliance can't really claim sov somewhere, and build it's POSes or stations, unless they are aligned with a large power bloc, either as pet, renter or ally. If they tried going it alone, they would probably not survive for long, unless perhaps, the space they claim is strategically utterly unimportant or worthless from an economical point of view. But even then someone will try to collect rent, because 'region x belongs to them'.
This is where the large empty swathes of nullsec Helicity mentions, come into play. These mostly deserted systems could easily support a number of smaller alliances (read: thousands of pilots) but as long as all nullsec space is divided between the large power blocs, there's not much chance of that happening. Nullsec won't be better occupied or developed as long as these large dominating blocs exist.
Break the bloc
Alliances aren't the issue in nullsec, the power blocs (basically anything the size of IT in 2010 or with 'coalition' in it's name) are. Their very existence keeps nullsec in a stranglehold, driving smaller alliances and corps either out of nullsec or in a perpetual state of pet/renter, which isn't doing anyone any good.
And now that IT alliance is (pretty much) history, you'd have to wonder what the future of nullsec is - a handful of (non-CCP!) alliance leaders get to determine what's happpening there... ? This can not be the intention of CCP, and unless something dramatic happens, I wouldn't be surprised to see some Icelandic intervention sooner or later. For nullsec to become alive again, the large blocs must fall.
Goons, unpredictable as ever..?
On the bright side.. after Goonswarm defeated BoB a few years ago, they lost their purpose, their goal. They became complacent and stagnant, and very nearly died; their current leadership has learned some valuable lessons then. Therefore, I can't see Goonswarm fall back to just maintaining the status quo, divide space with a few other guys and act as a landlord to renters. It's just not in their best long term interest. I would suspect them to pull off some sort of stunt in the near future - if nothing else of interest happens. Think an invasion, a standings reset.. remember, you read it here first ;-)
Participants:
- CrazyKinux's Musing: EVE Blog Banter #25: And by Alliance you mean.....?
- BB25 What sov changes will come? | A Mule In EvE
- Confessions of a Closet Carebear: Alliances and Sovereignty
- Blog Banter 25: Nerfing Nulsec « OMG! You're a Chick?!
- Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? | Nitpickin's
- Blog Banter #25: Alliance and Sovereignty Limiting PvP in 0.0? | Sarnel Binora's Blog
- Blog Banter #25 - Mad Haberdashers
- Alliances and sovereignty | Eve Online Focus
- ...Shall we not Revenge?: BB 25: What if the Alliance vanished?
- Blog Banter: Alliances and Sov
- EVEOGANDA: BB25: Sov 'n Go!
- » TBG:EBB#25 – Alliances and Sovereignty To Boldly Go
- Freebooted: BB25: Leviathans of the Deep
- Wrong Game Tetra ~ Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
- EVE Blog Banter #25 – Human nature what art thou? | Way of the Gun
- Who cares about Sov? - Hands Off, My Loots! ~ well sorta like an entry! :p
- The 25th EVE Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty - The Phoenix Diaries
- Achernar: The space commute
- Wandering the Void…my EvE musings. – Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty
- (OOC) CK’s Blog Banter #25: How To Break EvE. « Prano's Journey
- Captain Serenity: Blog Banter #25 - Crappy mechanics
- Helicity Boson » Blog Banter #25 Nullsec and sov.
- BB #25 – “With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?”
- Boom! Hull-Shot?: It's the End of the Eve as We Know It
- Sered's lives: EVE Blog Banter #25 - Size does matter
- 25th EVE BB – Medieval Solutions to Spaceship Problems | Inventions of a New Eden Industrialist
- Eve Blog Banter #25: “Have Alliances and Sov Limited PvP and RP in 0.0?” « Align Outbound
- Banter 25: Sovereignty, Alliances and Power Blocs | TheElitist
- Blog Banter 25 – But I just left all that! « A Scientist's Life in Eve
- Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
- >>>Vigil Ant: Alliances and SOV by Munny's eyes.
- Latro's Bunker: Blog Banter 25 -Nullsec and Sov
- A "CareBears" Journey » Blog Banner #25: Alliances and Sovereignty, and their affect on PVP and RP
- Blog Banter #25 – Unstoppable « Roc's Ramblings
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Eve Online: sov lost
For years I rummaged around Gallente highsec, running missions and doing some smalltime trading, usually as a member of corps with the same group of pilots I’ve known for years. Finally, bored out of our skulls, a few of us created a new corp (No Fixed Abode - NOFAD) and joined Saints amongst Sinners alliance in Querious. For the first time I was part of a sovereignty holding nullsec alliance! With the plentiful beltrat bounties, the havens and the sanctums also came the CTA’s, gatecamps, roaming gangs and skirmishes. I scored my first solo pvp kill, got killed too and generally enjoyed it thoroughly. If there’s one thing I regret, is that I didn't do this earlier!But all was not well. We were in Querious as IT renters, but, unbeknownst to us IT was on the verge of a failscade. Pretty soon it looked like IT wasn't able to repel the assaults directed at Fountain, and when IT needed more support, they upgraded us from renters to allies and gave us the entire constellation instead of just our home system B-7DFU. But for IT, it really was too late to turn the tide and it became clear we were on our own.
For a while, we were able to withstand the annoyances of Goon cloaky SB pilots (true, that wasn't the hard part) and the occassional roaming gang of reds. But when IT caved in, we soon encountered other enemies at our doorstep. We fought off Atlas. a few times - including their cap ships, I might add. We gate camped, scored kills, destroyed a number of SBU’s, but in the end we couldn’t withstand the combined pressure of –A-, Atlas. and Pandemic Legion. After we lost a few key battles, most of us evacuated our goods to either NPC nullsec or into Khanid and bade farewell to a part of New Eden that served us well.
For the past few weeks, –A-, Atlas. and PL have been duking it out in KFIE-Z, which is a dozen or so jumps away from our former home B-7DFU, and as long as PL has the ability to hotdrop –A-/Atlas. fleets in the region on a whim, I'm not sure someone else will claim sovereignty there. The -A- guys have had their butts kicked painfully, a few times, and I don’t see things changing in their favour anytime soon. In other words: unless Pandemic Legion gets curb stomped unexpectedly, it holds the keys to who’s going to have sov in our former home in Querious.
The impact of IT's once powerful cap fleets being able to move quickly throughout New Eden via their jump bridge network, has allowed them to project power across a large expanse of the cluster, more or less allowing us to find a nice and relatively safe spot under their protection. But when IT caved, the same mechanics allowed large enemy cap fleets to knock on our doors in no time. It still seems that holding sov in nullsec is a large alliances' game; you need the cap fleet and, preferrably, the backing of a large coalition if you want to establish a long term presence.
But then.. what is long term, in Eve Online nullsec? The biggest changes on the map have often happened in very short time frames, sometimes even overnight.. remember to pay that sov bill, guys!
So, as for Saints amongst Sinners: after a turbulent time in late 2010 and early 2011, we now find ourselves in a much different place. We are reorganizing in NPC nullsec, and will be preparing for a next stab at sov in nullsec. Stay tuned :)
Friday, February 11, 2011
Eve Online: weird graphics stuff
After the recent Eve Online: Incursion patches, I have had weird graphics effects on this laptop, which sports a ATI Mobility Radeon HD2300 GPU. It's not an impressive gpu, not by a longshot, but it's still supported for the current Eve client.
The first nuisance is this weird darkening issue with ATI cards on Windows 7. The solution is to upgrade to the latest Catalyst stuff, which I can't because it's not available for my hardware. Just my luck :)
The other issue concerns screenshots. If you press the printscreen button while in Eve, a snapshot is saved - by default as a .bmp in the C:\Users\username\Documents\EVE\capture\Screenshots directory. After the latest patch, there's some truly strange coloring in my screenshots:
The Windows photo viewer does not show these artefacts at all, but Picasa does. Uploading to Koinup didn't work either, this resulted in a format error: "the file you provided seems to be invalid". If I copy the picture to .jpg, the strange coloring is preserved:
Luckily, I am still able to get good copies of these snapshots, by opening them in Picasa and saving a copy, this time as a bitmap again:
Perhaps this is solved too, by installing that Catalyst 10.12 package, but first I need to find a way to get that to install on my laptop!
The first nuisance is this weird darkening issue with ATI cards on Windows 7. The solution is to upgrade to the latest Catalyst stuff, which I can't because it's not available for my hardware. Just my luck :)
The other issue concerns screenshots. If you press the printscreen button while in Eve, a snapshot is saved - by default as a .bmp in the C:\Users\username\Documents\EVE\capture\Screenshots directory. After the latest patch, there's some truly strange coloring in my screenshots:
The Windows photo viewer does not show these artefacts at all, but Picasa does. Uploading to Koinup didn't work either, this resulted in a format error: "the file you provided seems to be invalid". If I copy the picture to .jpg, the strange coloring is preserved:
Luckily, I am still able to get good copies of these snapshots, by opening them in Picasa and saving a copy, this time as a bitmap again:
Perhaps this is solved too, by installing that Catalyst 10.12 package, but first I need to find a way to get that to install on my laptop!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Eve Online: developments in Querious
By now, my alliance has been in the Querious region for quite a while, and we joined them there about four months ago. Much has happened since then! IT alliance is struggling to cope with a relentless assault, mounted by Goons and other enemies, and the political landscape of our part of New Eden could change at any moment. Who knows what will happen!
Only a few days ago, we expected a huge wave of reds (enemy pilots) to wash over us; we expected to die a violent death any moment. We defiantly braced for impact, preparing to 'go down in a blaze of glory', THIS IS SPARTA!, Alamo, and all that.
And then - nothing really happened. The last big battles in the region sort of petered out, and except for a few stealth bomber cowards and the incidental roaming gangs, no big red waves were spotted anywhere near our home. Perhaps it had already broken?
Our home in Querious - may it long be 'our house' indeed:
So here we are, mentally and physically prepared for battle. We don't know if the current quiet is just the quiet before the storm; perhaps the enemy is merely taking a breather before trying to wipe us out. Or perhaps they are too busy pursuing other goals, to worry about us. Things change fast out here, these days; todays' enemy may be tomorrows' ally, reds become blue and blues turn red..
For a recovering carebear like myself, this is a great time to be in Querious. You are continually challenged: deploy to here, station yourself there, patrol this system or camp that gate, get this ship fit.. There's no time to become stagnant, you have to adapt rapidly, and you don't know today what will happen tomorrow.
It's also a time where you have to decide whether you stay and fight to defend your place in nullsec, or if you perhaps sneak out, tail firmly tucked between your legs, to hide out in highsec.. Even though this is just 'an internet spaceship game', it does feel like a real test of character vis à vis your corp and alliance mates. Obviously, I am staying, even though my PVP skills aren't that great yet.
For now, we'll be alert and ready, waiting for that red wave. It may yet come..
Only a few days ago, we expected a huge wave of reds (enemy pilots) to wash over us; we expected to die a violent death any moment. We defiantly braced for impact, preparing to 'go down in a blaze of glory', THIS IS SPARTA!, Alamo, and all that.
And then - nothing really happened. The last big battles in the region sort of petered out, and except for a few stealth bomber cowards and the incidental roaming gangs, no big red waves were spotted anywhere near our home. Perhaps it had already broken?
Our home in Querious - may it long be 'our house' indeed:
So here we are, mentally and physically prepared for battle. We don't know if the current quiet is just the quiet before the storm; perhaps the enemy is merely taking a breather before trying to wipe us out. Or perhaps they are too busy pursuing other goals, to worry about us. Things change fast out here, these days; todays' enemy may be tomorrows' ally, reds become blue and blues turn red..
For a recovering carebear like myself, this is a great time to be in Querious. You are continually challenged: deploy to here, station yourself there, patrol this system or camp that gate, get this ship fit.. There's no time to become stagnant, you have to adapt rapidly, and you don't know today what will happen tomorrow.
It's also a time where you have to decide whether you stay and fight to defend your place in nullsec, or if you perhaps sneak out, tail firmly tucked between your legs, to hide out in highsec.. Even though this is just 'an internet spaceship game', it does feel like a real test of character vis à vis your corp and alliance mates. Obviously, I am staying, even though my PVP skills aren't that great yet.
For now, we'll be alert and ready, waiting for that red wave. It may yet come..
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Eve Online: being beaten is a steep learning curve
What I called "the inevitable" here happened today: I lost my drake battlecruiser. Here's how.
Earlier this evening, while I was doing some light ratting, one of our scouts reported an incoming fleet from Darkside. alliance, about 30 pilots strong. Now for a casual roaming gang, that's a bit too big.. They briefly touched on our gate, one pilot even jumped in, but the rest went on their merry way, apparently to C3N where IT has recently had their hands full. Our FC decided we should pursue, after all if these 30 men get into C3N, IT will be on hand to squash them! So the ten of us pursued.
At the C3N gate, we actually overtook one of the Darkside. guys, and before the FC's command to leave him alone and jump into C3N got through to me, I had already fired a missile at him. At that moment my fleet jumped, and a Darkside. fleet landed on the gate.. Suddenly I was surrounded by lots of ill tempered Russian neutrals! Because I had just fired a missile at a neutral, the gate wouldn't let me jump (aggro rules you must learn, young padawan) and I had to warp away as quick as I could - to any point but here, really - to survive. I was fast enough, and got out! My alliance mates however were not so lucky. At the other side of the gate, the enemy made short work of them.. IT alliance hadn't been aware soon enough of the skirmish that was about to begin, and IT's reinforcements were too late to prevent defeat. So, most of our first wave of responders made their way to our home system automatically, waking up in a fresh clone and an insurance note in their inbox after being podded in C3N! I briefly jumped back to the gate to assist a fleet mate, but warped out again when he told me he was lost anyway. Again I survived, just because I was fast enough.
A little while later, I traveled home, alone and unharmed, when the enemy overtook me and jumped into our home system. I waited for instructions from my FC, and finally made my way back in, warping straight to the battlefield, which was centered around one of our carriers - which should of course have been docked up a long time ago, given that the enemy was already in system.. From this point on, things went downhill fast. The Darkside. fleet had better logistiscs, repping their own pilots faster as we could, and we were unable to hold the field, much less defeat them. Slowly we continued to bleed ships (including my Drake), until after a while an IT alliance fleet came in to assist. Upon their arrival, Darkside. disengaged, left our home system and we were left to contemplate what had just happened.
For the first time, it seems we were a specific target for a well known pvp outfit. Helping IT alliance out does make you known here and there, apparently :) Personally, I think the whole initial manoeuver was a trap; we were lured out into the pursuit, and the enemy made sure the first responders were out of system and neutralized before entering our home system. At the same time, the lonely Darkside. pilot who went in our home system remained there, scouting out a juicy target - the Carrier - for his buddies to land on when they arrived. A sound strategy, executed with a balanced fleet - enough logistics - and good discipline. Did we learn a lesson tonight? You bet we have :-)
By the way - at least of the pilots involved in the Darkside. fleet appears in this Alliance Tournament movie: Darkside. vs RAZOR, so we were indeed confronted with some very experienced pvp pilots here..
Monday, December 20, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Eve Online: my son hates goons
Earlier this week we got word that IT alliance requested our assistance, for an operation this sunday afternoon. As we gathered today, we heard rumors about a battle being fought somewhere else; we were probably going to be bridged in to help IT.
When he noticed what was happening, my son, currently nine years of age, got very excited: he's been eager to see some large scale fleet battle. He has developed a bit of a habit: whenever we play Eve Online together, he gets us a bottle of coke and two glasses, and then sits next to me to watch. And even though he doesn't speak English, he grabs one of my earbuds to listen in on TeamSpeak :)
Our fleet was supposed to leave around 18.00; I logged in some ten minutes before that. There was a small delay, and then another one, and in the end we left around 18.30. It was a glorious sight, as around 40 of my fellow pilots warped through Querious space together! Or, against the backdrop of a barren planet, where we briefly held:
Soon, we entered the target system, and joined the IT forces already there at a nearby Player Owned Station (POS). As more and more ships warped in, it got a bit crowded. And when the supercarriers arrived - including a Minmatar Hel and a buch of Gallente Nyxes, it got really impressive! My son however wasn't around to watch that anymore, as by now the operation had been going on for over an hour and there wasn't really happening much.. he had gotten bored and went away. I promised however to call him when the enemy would arrive.
Nothing continued to happen for a long time, however, while my son periodically, and with growing irritation, inquired as to if the enemy (GoonFleet alliance) had arrived yet. They never showed up; either too busy elsewhere or unwilling to face an IT fleet this size and strenght. We were also not bridged out to another battle as we originally thought, and so, after more than three hours, we were dismissed. Lady Scarlett spoke some kind words of appreciation, the fleet disbanded, and a bunch of us made our way home.. I was asked to FC that leg of our trip, but given what was happening at home - more on that below - and that I have no experience, I declined.. would have been a nice opportunity to try it out!
By now, my son was in tears, sobbing to his mother about the stupid Goonfleet enemy that didn't show up, the stupid hour he lost watching our fleet do conga lines in a pos, the stupid maker of Eve Online, why he'd even bothered to grab coke and glasses, my stupid computer which he was going to destroy with a large axe he wanted to buy first thing tomorrow morning.. He was sad and angry. He had been looking forward todoing a large fleet battle together with his dad, and nothing had happened! I really had to spend some time to explain what we did: we secured an important asset for IT alliance, and we'll get a nice reward. Some battles are not won by shooting, but simply by showing up and guarding your assets! He accepted the explanation, but still spoke harsh words of condemnation for the Goons that didn't show up.
So there you have it, Goons. You ruined my son's sunday evening, and probably his opinion of the entire game, simply by not showing up for a fight tonight. He really has it in for you now.. you have made a fierce enemy out of him. Just wait until he's old enough to go to nullsec ;-)
When he noticed what was happening, my son, currently nine years of age, got very excited: he's been eager to see some large scale fleet battle. He has developed a bit of a habit: whenever we play Eve Online together, he gets us a bottle of coke and two glasses, and then sits next to me to watch. And even though he doesn't speak English, he grabs one of my earbuds to listen in on TeamSpeak :)
Our fleet was supposed to leave around 18.00; I logged in some ten minutes before that. There was a small delay, and then another one, and in the end we left around 18.30. It was a glorious sight, as around 40 of my fellow pilots warped through Querious space together! Or, against the backdrop of a barren planet, where we briefly held:
Soon, we entered the target system, and joined the IT forces already there at a nearby Player Owned Station (POS). As more and more ships warped in, it got a bit crowded. And when the supercarriers arrived - including a Minmatar Hel and a buch of Gallente Nyxes, it got really impressive! My son however wasn't around to watch that anymore, as by now the operation had been going on for over an hour and there wasn't really happening much.. he had gotten bored and went away. I promised however to call him when the enemy would arrive.
Nothing continued to happen for a long time, however, while my son periodically, and with growing irritation, inquired as to if the enemy (GoonFleet alliance) had arrived yet. They never showed up; either too busy elsewhere or unwilling to face an IT fleet this size and strenght. We were also not bridged out to another battle as we originally thought, and so, after more than three hours, we were dismissed. Lady Scarlett spoke some kind words of appreciation, the fleet disbanded, and a bunch of us made our way home.. I was asked to FC that leg of our trip, but given what was happening at home - more on that below - and that I have no experience, I declined.. would have been a nice opportunity to try it out!
By now, my son was in tears, sobbing to his mother about the stupid Goonfleet enemy that didn't show up, the stupid hour he lost watching our fleet do conga lines in a pos, the stupid maker of Eve Online, why he'd even bothered to grab coke and glasses, my stupid computer which he was going to destroy with a large axe he wanted to buy first thing tomorrow morning.. He was sad and angry. He had been looking forward todoing a large fleet battle together with his dad, and nothing had happened! I really had to spend some time to explain what we did: we secured an important asset for IT alliance, and we'll get a nice reward. Some battles are not won by shooting, but simply by showing up and guarding your assets! He accepted the explanation, but still spoke harsh words of condemnation for the Goons that didn't show up.
So there you have it, Goons. You ruined my son's sunday evening, and probably his opinion of the entire game, simply by not showing up for a fight tonight. He really has it in for you now.. you have made a fierce enemy out of him. Just wait until he's old enough to go to nullsec ;-)
Monday, December 13, 2010
Eve Online: solo versus social and the joys of pvp
(It has become a bit of a long post, but I wanted to get some thoughts out on highsec, nullsec (0.0) and how I experience the transition from the former to the latter. For those unfamiliar with Eve Online system security statuses: here's a primer!)Until recently, I was a typical highsec carebear – with one exception: I didn’t mine unless I really had to. All the fuss about nullsec alliance warfare was interesting but didn’t mean anything to me, really. PVP was just a nuisance, something those antisocial highsec griefers do to defenseless pve oriented carebears such as myself. And I considered Eve Online to be a social game, as it is an open sandbox universe with virtually limitless options, in terms of careers, development and things to do and achieve. Staying in nullsec for an extended period of time has altered some of these long held convictions, and reinforced others.
Expect the unexpected
Flying in nullsec adds a whole new level of depth to New Eden. In highsec, there’s pretty much nothing unexpected that will happen to you, if you stay in the right places and do the right things.. For instance running level 4 missions in Everyshore pretty much guarantees a modest but steady income of ISK without much surprises. In nullsec however, even in places considered relatively safe, there is always an awareness that anything might happen, at any time, in any place. A roaming gang of reds may attempt a surprise attack on your system; a lonely but very dangerous enemy stealth bomber suddenly appears out of nowhere and attacks; the large alliance you rent space from may urgently request your presence on a nearby battlefield, in five minutes thankyouverymuch. You need to be ever alert, ready to move, defend or attack. And making ISK isn’t a goal in itself, necessarily, but a tool to fund the ships and goods necessary for defense.
PVP, not so bad after all
This means my attitude towards PVP has changed as well. I still maintain that PVP between seasoned PVP characters and highsec carebears is too much of an uneven fight, but in nullsec it’s a very different game: it’s about protecting your assets. I have, to my own surprise, come to enjoy the clashes with roaming gangs and solo pvp pilots! These engagements can be entertaining and exciting, sometimes leading to extended fighting and long term feuds. So far I have been lucky only to have scored kills; I haven’t suffered a loss yet. I’m sure that moment will come – it’s inevitable – but for now my Querious stats are fine. And with the steady and much larger amount of ISK now flowing into my wallet, losing a ship isn’t that much of a problem anymore either.
One of the more fascinating things about fleet engagements and nullsec pvp in general, is the wealth of options and strategies that are available to the pilots. So many different ship types and ships, each with their own specific strengths and weaknesses, with innumerable ways to fit and use them! The level of detail and expertise that can be achieved continues to amaze me, and far outstrips anything highsec mission runners are used to.
Solo versus social
On the ‘social’ side, I must say nullsec beats highsec too. In highsec, most pilots work solo, incidentally joining forces for a mining op or a few rounds of lvl4’s. CCP is aware of this, and has been trying - for years - to get the highsec pilots to work together. With Incursion, CCP is even resorting to full blown Sansha invasions, in order to achieve this goal.
In nullsec, cooperation is the norm, rather than the exception. Some activities (ratting, easy complexes) can be done solo, but even mining often requires the presence of combat ships in order to ward off ‘belt rats’, the non player driven (NPC) enemies that spawn in asteroid belts from time to time. And higher level complexes are usually done in teams as well: much more effective and the rewards get spread over a larger number of pilots. Finally, given the constant threat of external violence, nullsec pilots are generaly forced to work together much more, in terms of exchanging intelligence, countering threats or achieving offensive goals.
Take fleets, for instance. In recent months, I have experieced two types of fleets. On the one hand, there’s the semi organized gathering of solo pilots who happen to share a chat channel. This is the type of fleets that highseccers are wont to create – chaotic, made up of whatever flies and whatever each individual likes. On the other hand, there’s the organized group of pilots, each with their own specific fleet role and orders, flying the specific ship types to match those roles, lead by an FC who knows his business (if you’re lucky of course). The first type of fleet is going to be massacred if they face a better trained enemy – no doubt about it. The second one however stands a chance against any adversary: in Eve Online, outnumbered but better organized and fc’d fleets have slaughtered numerical superior forces time and time again. As for our own alliance: we were definitely of the first, likely-to-get-massacred type not too long ago. We are currently of the second type, and we’re getting better at what we do with each engagement, and with passing week. And I'm enjoying each minute of it!
Eve Online: Conga!
Last night we were called for a defensive operation in a nearby solar system. We were waiting for the enemy, but - they didn't show up. Finally, bored, our pilots lined up for a conga line in space.. when the first man started to 'approach' the last man, the circle was closed, and we rotated in space for several minutes like this :)
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