EVE Online

It was a 7.1 gig patch, but I did managed to get into Flying Lab’s Pirates of the Burning Sea last night, and spent a little more time with it tonight. Just went through the tutorial, did some of the Yuletide quests, joined a “society” (guild) named La Fédération, and wandered around the starting town. Veteran players were being helpful over the nationwide chat and the server was hopping. One server for North America, one for the EU, and a test server. I haven’t played PotBS for a couple of years, but I was very much impressed by their improvements to the land game. The NPCs sing, dance, and make the town very much a lively place to stroll – see the video at the end. ...

Saturday, I linked to a raid force taking down some old Kunark and Velious mobs. That got me into the game to try and see if I could find any of those same bosses - Cazic Thule, Faydedar, Trakanon and Velketor the Sorceror - up. As far as I know, CT and Faydedar, in their original forms, are no longer in the game. Trakanon had been killed just moments before I got to his lair. Velketor was up, though, and I’ve embedded a video of our meeting at the end. ...

I’m not really going to swear vengeance on the corp that hunted us down, took our starbase and then – magnanimously – retracted the wardec once they’d gotten what they wanted from us. I was choosing from among the ships left to Etha, and this frigate looked just like the sort of thing that would sneak up on someone, decloak, go into a mad speed-tanked frenzy, leave them smoldering wreckage and warp away into the shadows…. ...

It’s been awhile since I’ve written about EVE Online; it’s been awhile since I PLAYED EVE Online. It’s my own fault, what happened. I’d left Otakudyne, a dead corp, for a nullsec corp. I found when I got there that nullsec was everything I didn’t like. Having to continuously monitor three mandatory channels, with at least three more that would be need to be watched, having to be on voice chat whenever I played the game, not being able to two box, having to farm rats for money, having to abandon the invention business which was my only source of income (since I’d stopped running missions because they were boring)…. The one night I spent in nullsec was a harrowing gauntlet of no fun at all. ...

Exciting MMO news lands in my inbox; I pass it along. Cryptic is dropping prices in their “C-Store” for the holiday weekend on existing items. Emphasis on existing; they also announce that the Galaxy X/Galaxy Dreadnought class cruiser will soon be available in the shop. This is the three nacelled Enterprise-D variant that Riker commanded in the future segment of The Next Generation’s “All Good Things”, and in particular is the ship that @Longasc has been trying to earn via getting people to sign up. Well, it’ll be in the store soon. ...

MMO devs fire broadside press releases at my inbox, and I inflict them on others. We’ll suffer together or not at all. Actually, let’s start off with a non-MMO offer. The Humble Indie Bundle from Wolfire Games collects five acclaimed Indie games (including the addictive building game World of Goo, underwater fantasy Aquaria, innovative platformer Gish, rabbit beat’m’up Lugaru, and horror adventure game Penumbra Overture. Until Monday, you can get all of these games AND donate to Electronic Freedom Foundation AND Child’s Play … at any price you want, divided between charities and the developers any way you want. This is a can’t lose deal – I was up till 2AM last night playing World of Goo… on my Linux box. ...

What wonders does the in box of mystery hold for us today? Cryptic announces veteran rewards for players who keep an active subscription to Star Trek Online. Saith Cryptic: “Skill point bonuses, titles, costume pieces, character slots… Veterans will be rewarded every 100 days! Rewards will be retroactive, too!” Nice of them! They’ve also announced a “Come back to STO” weekend and a “Recruit a Friend” program; all these kick off May 7. ...

I sat in front of my computer the other night, not really feeling a pull toward any MMO. I was watching Zombieland, and I couldn’t think of any MMO that would be more fun than watching the best comedy zombie movie since Shaun of the Dead. Blahblahblah. This isn’t a post about quitting MMOs. This is a post about WILLING IMMERSION. I talked a little about this yesterday. Immersion can seem like a quality of a game, but it’s really a quality of the player. Even the best game is nothing like reality; it’s as far removed from reality as anything can be. To make it important to us, we have to willingly fill in the lines, paint the walls, paper the ceiling and give it a place in our reality. You might argue that games can help immersion by having fantastic graphics, amazing sound design and killer animations, but I have been immersed in books before. I have immersion to spare; all I really ask of a game is that it doesn’t BREAK my immersion. ...

A few days ago, my alt in EVE Online, Etha Preve, finished enough training to fly the Amarrian stealth bomber, the Purifier. After grouping with a friend who had just gotten the skills to fly his own bomber (a Nemesis), I knew I’d want one on my alt to help with level 4 missions. There’s this time in Level 4 missions where you’ve taken down all the lesser ships with drones, and all you have left are slow, lumbering battle cruisers and battleships. These seem to take the most time, because I am usually ALSO in a slow, lumbering battleship. The ships are gravy for stealth bombers. They can stand out of missile, beam and gun range and just lob missiles and torpedoes into the fray. If they get aggro, they can move out of targeting range and cloak. As a fleet member, they are first-rate damage and, with sensor dampeners, can even take on missions by themselves, using their small signature radius, high flight speed and ability to jam enemy sensors to dance outside of firing range, making their entire lack of any defense less of an issue. ...

On my fourth try, my Nemesis invention produced an actual blueprint. That’s pretty fun, but what are the true costs? I wasn’t able to find any Tristan blueprints on contract on which to base the invention, so I had to buy an original. That DOES give me a second avenue of profit, as I can sell Tristan blueprints at about 200K each. They don’t move quickly, but they eventually do sell. ...