Holy Giant Experience Leaps Batman

So I spent last night patching EQ2, and it kept hanging and forcing me to restart.  But it finally went through, and I logged in early tonight to get in some free EQ2 time.

I found my Necromancer on the beach in Nektulos, just shy of level 31, and decided to level him before seeking new territories to explore. 

I decide just to grind a few lowbie pirates until I get the hang of my combat skills again, remembering what orders and triggers and what does what.  Especially with some things having been renamed and the new Apprentice – Grandmaster specializing options (kudos to the dev team on both of those by the way, good stuff).

So I target a pirate, hit her with my opening spell, my pets, and even a little dagger action, and she dies.  And I went from being nearly done with level 30 to being 38% through level 31.  I’ve checked all the boards and game updates and I have no idea what is going on.   I logged back in, and killed more peeps and got more XP than I think I should have, but still nowhere near that leap.  Anyone with any insight, hit me up!

I also have no idea what that little black circle window thingy is either.

Check your Station Account!

Those wacky SOE guys are at it again, giving away free playing time and not telling anyone. 

I was trying to get set up for the debut of the 51/50 server today, and postponed my Station Access Pass purchase when I realized I had a few more days of free Vanguard, along with a free month of Star Wars and two free weeks of Everquest II.

The catch for me is still how to work Everquest. I have an account and most of the expansions unlocked, but apparently no longer have the disc!  So I can’t install it on my computer.  Does that mean I have to rebuy the game from SOE in addition to reactivating my account?  I wanted to try the Epic play and support this little experiment, but I hate to rebuy something I technically already own.  Any tips?

I Can’t Keep Up!

Wow, the war decs are flying.  In the last two weeks, here’s a capsule summary of what my alliance has been up to:

• Moved to a new Region
• Got war dec’d by the Alliance claming the low sec area we moved to
• Made peace around 24 hours later and joined forces
• Increased its size by a third by adding a new corp
• Lost a third of its size as the new corp left almost as soon as it arrived
• All while war dec’ing another Alliance as part of our Inter-Alliance operations
• Finished that war
• Started another one that was invalidated half a day later (I have no idea what that means)
• Started another one that is currently in progress.

In the meantime, I’ve relaxed, and come to a somewhat “whew” realization that I have indeed missed EVE and would like to keep playing it!  I’ve also come to admit that I don’t really want to move another twenty jumps away and get caught in what seems to be, at this point, an endless cycle of war.

I’m behind in virtually every category from where the average pilot in our corp is at, and I have virtually no standing with any corp or empire.  And those two things are really bugging me.  So I think it may be time to branch out on my own for awhile.  I don’t want to run missions just for standing though.  No, I want more.  I want a Megathron Navy Issue.  And an Omen Navy Issue (for no reason other than the navy blue scheme looks a-w-e-s-o-m-e). And while thumbing through this fantastic LP database that I highly recommend, I realized you could also get a blueprint for both.  And I thought, if I want these to be anything more than a trophy, I’m going to have to find a way to replace the ones I lose.  But only those NPC corps who are located within their respective empire’s space issue those rewards, and then only the ones with core navy/military ties.  And I’m neck deep in Minmatar space.  Which means moving alot more than twenty jumps, and in some cases, through long links of low-sec systems – in other words, through what will mostly likely be pirate havens.

How did I get myself into this mess?

Maybe I’m shooting a little high, always a possibility in a game as open ended as EVE is.   In any case, I feel an urgency to decide what I’m doing next, and quick.  If I’m sticking around with my corp, I need to get out there and help with the war efforts.  If I’m branching out on my own, I need to decide what my next goal is and where I need to be to achieve it.   Welcome home eh?

Vacation

Thanks all for bearing with the absense, its been a much needed vacation this week, more than I realized. While I have had internet access, I have chosen to spend the time with family instead. Regular posting will resume next week.

Up first: How my corp went from moving to war to peace within a 36 hour period!

As I spend this time in my self-inflicted gaming exile, I do so in a place that exhausts me on a daily basis, and I reflect on time away from the game.  I’ll be home for a day this weekend, but probably won’t have a chance to log in before I’m gone for another week.

And I wonder, what will the absense do?  Often when I’m gone, I pine for the game, and then when I get home, I just can’t seem to motivate myself to start it up and play.  Or I get it started and can’t get into the groove to do much of anything.  Will EVE make the cut and get over that hurdle?  I’ve never had a game where my character progressed and made money while I was gone, so there is a chance those things will be incentive to keep playing and not feel overwhelmed by lost time.

Speaking of, what about Pirates?  My brother is leveling his Freetrader up, but he’s already ahead with his Naval Officer?  Will I log back in and despair at what I’ve missed?  Will I remember the elaborate scheme of buildings and locations he had to puzzle out for us to be able to build even the most simple of ships?  And what about him?  Will he have lost interest in the game?  Will he have decided to move on?  Has not having anyone to play with diminished his game time any?

I don’t have the answer for any of these, but I am curious to see the results.  For now, I’m content to write about the things I enjoy in the time I have.  And now its time for bed.  Later kiddos…

A New Breed of CSM

You may have seen this plog post by Scott Jennings or one similar to it on the same topic in this last week.  If you haven’t take a minute to read over it.

Back?

When I last checked the thread, earlier this week everyone had jumped on the bandwagon, rolling their eyes and decrying this particular customer service guys lack of patience and idiocy.

I couldn’t disagree more.

That is *exactly* what the forum moderators for MMO’s should be doing.  And if they need to back it up with the banhammer, by all means, do so.

The problem is that official game forums are, most of the time, filled with whiny snotty Veruca Salt clones who want what they just discovered today and they want it yesterday.

They think the game revolves around them and will crash without them, and they think that since they troll the forums the 3.683 hours each week that they can’t actually be playing, that they must be the true fan base that the company must listen to or else.

And so far as I know, not a single gaming company has ever, ever told them otherwise.

I understand the companies’ strategy with this:  give all the intolerable, insufferable players a place to congregate at where they are out of sight, out of mind.  And then give them just enough power to think that they have enough of it.  But that strategy is not a solution, and that place becomes a festering dungheap where Bad Things Happen, and where new players looking to make a decision about joining the game come, duck their head in, and run like hell for some other place where some tiny smidgeon of order and common sense might occasionally reign.

So fight fire with fire I say.  Might as well stir the pot and keep up the drama!  At least that way, they get interested and stay in their little corner instead of the rest of the game world where we’d like to be playing in peace without the plague of global chat.  Send in the most offensive and witty guys to run the forums.  Let them turn it into their own little private kingdom of complaints and nonsense into an organized tower of shady dealings.  At this point, it certainly couldn’t hurt any.  And lets face it, anyone mad enough to quit over a CMS forum mod reminding you of just who happens to be in charge of your favorite playground (hint: its not you) we probably don’t want in the game with us anyway, right?

Right.  So, give a round of applause to this latest CSM to “snap” and become a “bad guy.”  May his words and actions be enough to continue to get attention, and may others follow in his good footsteps, and not give anything to anyone who wines and acts like a spoiled child.  Your mama wouldn’t have it any other way, would she!?

Oi.

Going through EVE withdrawal sucks.

The good news? Some minor industrial kicks while I’m gone. Remember that Arby? I was just test driving it, it was really part of my income while I’m out of town plan:

2 Arbitrators
Cost to make: 1.316 million
Income at sale:6.00 million

3 Rifters
Cost to make: 118k
Income at sale:618k

Net: 6.618m – 1.434m =

5.184 million ISK

Not much, but better than nothing, I can build more, and most importantly, I had fun doing it.

Posting Nightly For Now…

Hey all, as noted previously, I’m on the road this week. Though I have access to the internet I’m busy during the day, so my posts will come at night. I may even have one in me later tonight, we’ll see!

Guess what I have…

And away we go...

The Long Road to Nowhere

“It was my habit either to go myself,with one or two men, or to send scouts, to find out some weak and exposed place in the enemy’s lines. I rarely rested for more than one day at a time. As soon as I knew of a point offering a chance for a successful attack, I gathered my men together and stuck a blow. From the rapidity with which these attacks were delivered and repeated, and the distant points at which they were made, a most exaggerated estimate of the number of my force was made.”

~ Col. John S. Mosby, Mosby’s War Reminiscenses

So I finally discovered that which I crave, the complete mix of utility and power that is indicative of the style of character classes I prefer to play in MMO’s.  I mean, for the short term, obviously anything drone related, and in particular the Arbitrator and its variants hold a true charm for me.  Drones can be carried for a number of different occasions from logistics to ewar to tackling to dps.  For this reason, I figured I would be headed, long term, to be a carrier and then mothership pilot.  But I have realized as I’ve played the game that carriers tend to be the “medics” of EVE – concerned with logistics, triage, and “buffing” other ships by assigning them fighters.  There is nothign wrong with that, but its not how I imagined myself engaging in space warfare.  I wanted something different.  And last night, as I worked more on my ultra top secret industry plans, it hit me.  I knew what the new long term goal would be.

Black Ops!

Stealth, calling in hot drops, sitting behind enemy lines, packing insane firepower and, if I went with the Sin, a horde of various drones to do my bidding.  Or with my new cross-training in Amarr styles, a true ammo-less guerilla, the Redeemer.

So set up EVEMon and starting seeding a skill plan.  Now I’ve learned a little about what I call “skill chains” – what leads you into what, skillwise, within the game.  Simplest example – you have to have Frigate IV before you can train Cruiser I.  Etc.  And since I nearly keeled over from impatience the 3+ weeks it took me to train Interceptors, and since it would take me a good 4+ months to train the skills for a Black Ops ship (and probably more than that to afford one and a good fit for it), I wanted to see what I could open up along the way as stepping stones for my goal.

And the problem is, that there is none.  While Black Ops might prep you for the world of capital ships, outside of cloaking and battleships, there is nothing below them in the chain that training would open up.  So, battleships, which I could have trained…87 minutes from now, and…that’s it.

So apparently Black Ops are meant as an afterthought to those training cap ships.  After all, if you are already in a dread, you’d only need a week or so to get Black Ops going.  That’s disappointing.  Shouldn’t Black Ops be a logical step up from Covert Ops, Stealth Bombers, and Force Recon ships?  Oh well, looks like for now, we’ll stick to smaller fish.