Just for my fellow Macsuleers (I know there’s a few of you), apparently Steam—which just got a sexy redesign—is rumored to be on its way to OSX. Here’s hoping this opens the door for more development enthusiasm for games on the Mac platform.
The EVE Newb himself tries his hand at enforcing justice in New Eden, to the dismay of local delinquents. I usually refrain from linking other blogs readers will most likely find on their own, but this had me rolling so hard I can’t resist. You brighten my day Spectre.
[ 03:13:03 ] Spectre3353 > Control - I have a 5712 Honda Rupture here with a tailight out. License plate 1726-A8FF-129100-FEA-1
[ 03:13:07 ] Spectre3353 > Roger roger.
Gamasutra reports CCP has opened an office in Newcastle, England, that is to work on “current and future console projects”. Perhaps a western base for DUST 514 development? Interesting.
Some incredibly beautiful planet posters by Ross Berens are finally for sale on his site. This is art. Now to convince my wife we need every one of these in our house.
It’s the second unwritten golden rule* for the survival of every pilot in New Eden: to get the most out of EVE, join a player corporation. We hear it all the time. When I first got my wings, I spent months looking for the right corp, with a lot of energy and consideration being put into the search. And rightly so, as there’s a lot of truth to that statement.
Strength is in numbers. In a universe of nearly limitless boundaries and infinite opportunities, a well-run corporation provides a pilot with much needed direction for the aimless, imposes discipline on the starry-eyed wanderer, and, most importantly, simply provides a voice in the eerily silent void of space. These were all things I desperately needed when I first joined M3 Corp over six months ago, and they were quickly fulfilled.
But now, after all the invaluable lessons I’ve learned under some incredibly talented fighter pilots (Darth, Max, Greyhound, and Kirith Kodachi, I’m talking to you), here I am, breaking the second rule of EVE. Yesterday I dropped roles in my first real corp experience in New Eden.
The practical reasons for this have mostly to do with the fact that I still feel I haven’t quite found my calling in PVP. This is no fault of the corp. In fact, if I was going to get the hang of PVP, it was going to be with a team of this caliber. But, It’s more because I joined such a veteran corp at an early age, and for the past few months it’s felt like I’m drowning in the deep end, when I needed to get some experience wading around the kiddie pool. I’ll admit it. I just couldn’t hang with the sharks. Not yet.
And because of that reason, I was still a little hesitant to drop corp. Would flying solo again make my experience in New Eden any easier? No. So, why drop? When is it actually a more productive and fulfilling decision to go nomad in New Eden?
Personally, I see it as the ultimate challenge. When you fly solo, your resources are limited. There are some engagements you just can’t take. There are rules you’ll have to learn the hard way, and there are plenty of mistakes you’ve got to be ready to make. I think I learn best in these situations. Because I’m not beholden to a corp, I’ve got to use other means of networking to find pilots to learn from. I can travel to an Agony course one weekend, follow an exploration corp into a wormhole the next, and come home to a high sec system and test out fittings in a relatively safe environment.
Another project I plan to try is wormhole diving: I’ll “pack my lunch” so to speak, jump into unknown space with a few probes on my back, and keep diving deeper and deeper, stay the night, and try to find my way back home eventually. I’ll be forced to think my way out of a situation I’ve never been in, and I’m not going to get anyone else in trouble by making a risky move.
Last night I started Project Copernicus [CPCS], my solo corp for experimentation in exploration and charting the unknown. If you have an exploration corp, or you fly solo, and wouldn’t mind a blue partner to sail the seas with once in a while, let me know. I plan to get the greatest variety of experiences in New Eden that I’m able before I eventually settle down in a bigger corporation again, so I’m going to take advantage all the friendly contacts I can.
So, needless to say, flying solo is appealing to me right now. I pose the same question to you guys, because I’m curious: What do you think is the right situation for flying solo, if there is such a thing? Are there times when you prefer it?
*The number one unwritten golden rule, of course, is: don’t fly what you can’t afford to lose. I’m not going to argue this one.
Just wanted to post a quick shout out to all the midwest capsuleers I met this weekend over some drinks in the city: Doctwho, K162Space, Jhared Skyfire and the rest of the explorers in The Environmental Management Team, Atraxerxes, Pit Boss, and yes, even Beowolf Schaefer, Stinger, and the rest of the Clown Punchers.
In all seriousness, it was a great time and I’m already looking forward to the next get-together. It’s a humbling thing to know the game I enjoy is abundant in such cool folks to hang out with in person too.
If you missed this one, look forward to another coming in May June hosted by Atraxerxes.
Cheers fellas.
And if any of you have photos from the gathering, do send them my way.
A bit of machinima simply showing off sites of New Eden. I thought the calming pace and striking shots deserved a link. Some really nice camera work here with a fitting ambient rock track.
Lots of bloggers are posting up their workspaces. I’ll bite. On the desk is my laminated Providence map, my little black EVE moleskine where I do all my note taking while flying, and yes, that’s the DUST 514 issue of EDGE magazine on the left.
Yargok has done a great job of gathering a list of bloggers that have been writing about the AAA siege of Providence, and organized them by which side of the fight they’re on. And I’ve gotta say I’m a little surprised at how many are with me on the Providence side—my feeds were feeling a little heavy on the opposition for a while there.
Our friend Doctwho from the Tweet Fleet has done us all a great thing and stepped up to organize an EVE meet up in his, and my, hometown of Chicago. It’s coming up fast at next Saturday, February 20th, at 8pm. The location is going to be Goose Island Brew Pub.
For more details, or if you feel like RSVPing, see the official forum thread here.
Any and all are welcome, so get out of the cold, come have a beer, and lets discuss some serious business about internet spaceships.
It’s old for most fans, I’m sure, but too good of an easter egg not to post.
Just in case you were feeling important today.
BattleClinic has announced the winners to a contest that asked players to rearrange a selection of candy hearts to profess your love for the game. And—random—I’m one of them! Looks like I’ve got a free 14 days in New Eden coming up. If you’re curious what my entry was, it’s here.
/me swoons for EVE.
(thanks to Jorshan for the heads up)
As with most newcomers to New Eden, my initial notions of what spacefaring would be like were pretty far misguided from the truth of EVE. Influenced by space operas like Firefly, I expected to work toward getting that one ship—that imperfect boat that I would learn to love, and it’d learn to love me. It’d be my Serenity, letting me salvage wrecks of fallen starships and fly under the radar of the greater powers in control. It’d be my Millennium Falcon, a barely-held-together-bucket-of-bolts built to out-maneuver the smallest frigates. Or maybe it’d be my Normandy—a slick prototype vessel that I could upgrade over time to be one hell of an all-purpose space tank.
So with all of those ideas in mind, I was initially turned off when I found out that the de-facto play style of EVE meant owning a ship for every situation, each tailored to an extremely specific niche purpose. Most every capsuleer’s hangar is found to be filled with Normandy’s, Fireflies, Falcons, Battlestars, X-Wings, USS Enterprises and Star Destroyers. And granted, owning all of those is nothing to complain about. It didn’t take me long to get over those preconceptions.
Though I have plenty of ships I enjoy flying, the thought of having that one ship to call home is still very appealing to me. I can safely say a multipurpose exploration boat that can probe, activate sites, and fend off rats and haul decent cargo shipments is practically my dream ship.
I never expected to have one ship that would allow me to do absolutely everything. By principle, the more your ship can do, the more spread-thin its skill set is—which is probably more than a few people’s ideas of a “fail fit”. But I can’t help but ask myself why is this always the case? Why is there not value in owning a ship that, sure, it isn’t the best at what it does, but it does a handful of useful things that keep you from returning to your hangar multiple times per run? Truly the main appeal here is exactly the mass appeal of the concept behind the Millennium Falcon or Firefly: the boat is the captain’s home and keeps them flying all the time, not beholden to any planet or station. The classic solo ronin vessel.
Do other pilots out there long for their Serenity too? Do any of you have a single ship you fly a majority of the time? Do you have a custom fitting that lets you do a few different tasks moderately well? Any ideas on fitting my dream multi-tasking exploration boat (I’ve heard HAC’s can get pretty close)?
I’d love to hear some discussion on the validity of flying an all-purpose ship in EVE—arguments for or against—and some feedback on how it could be done well for your solo fly-style of choice, be it exploration, trading, combat, etc.
A chorus of sirens drummed through the corridors of the space station, interrupted by the occasional thunder of another missile breach on its exterior. Rettic sat in a room overlooking one of PAX Incendia Astrum’s many hangars, watching through a fogged green plate window as ships departed by the dozens. The room itself, however, was muffled to near silence.
“You ‘ought to be getting out of here, you know,” spoke the rusty voice of an old Udorian man hunched behind a counter on the other side of the room. Rettic turned to look at the walls of the old consignment shop adorned in planetside relics—old ship scraps, hand-drawn maps charting years-past anomalies of the D-GTMI system, cracked wooden slabs and rock mineral souvenirs of failed planet terraforming attempts—all the keepings of a retired ‘dust merc’.
Rettic wiped the dirt film from a glass bottle, revealing the hull of a toy model Archon carefully preserved inside.
“Goddamn political mess,” said the old man, seemingly talking to himself now. “The ‘powers that be’ get another religious hard-on for expansion and decide to throw a few rocks at the hive in my back yard. And we get the surprise when here come the liberators, comin’ to free their slaves from from Amarrian oppression…”
He either laughed or coughed. Rettic couldn’t tell.
“Misdirected aggression all around,” the old man continued as he lifted his head. “I supposed these U’kies are in for a treat when there ain’t hardly no slave types to liberate in a goddamned Paxton Federation settlement.”
“I gotta say,” Rettic interjected, “I like you better when you aren’t in such a good mood, Sam.”
“Well,” he smiled, “What can I say? It must be the weather.”
A deep clap sounded through the stone-metal walls and ripped through the room, knocking over glass blown lamps and cutting the power from a neon “Samuel’s Found Goods” sign hanging over the counter.
“God—summabitch—” Sam scrambled to keep hold of the tools in his hands and shielded his work area with his arms. His cigar remained balanced at the end of his lips. “Rettic, son, looks like you may get a good discount this time.”
“My offer still stands, Sam,” Rettic spoke with calm sincerity. “You don’t have to stay here.”
“But I gotta stay for the party, Rettic. It’s been too long since I’ve seen fireworks like this.” Sam joked, “Besides, haven’t you heard enough of my ramblings? If I talk a capsuleer’s ear off while he’s steering a ship like I do yours every other day here, I’m gonna get us killed faster than these U’kies and Triple A-hole folk’ll do me in.”
“You have such an elegant way with words, Sam. How could I tire of that?” Rettic grinned.
“Ah, there we go.” The old man lifted a Kolderic model 25 round hand-blaster under the desk lamp. “All cleaned up for you like the day it was made…over, what…two-hundred years ago?”
Rettic looked in quiet awe at the gun’s dull finish in the light, nearly overwhelmed with memories of it gripped in his father’s hands, the smell of the harvest fields and the sound of wind as he followed his footsteps on the farm. Suns soft in the sky. Dirt beneath his feat. “It’s never looked this good, Sam.”
“Yeah, It’s a might prettier now,” he said as he handed it to Rettic, “but like I told you two weeks ago when you brought it in, I can’t do nothing to it that’ll help your shitty aim.”
Rettic holstered the weapon under his overcoat. “What are you going to do with yourself, Sam?”
The man raised his eyebrows with a drawn out sigh. “I’m gonna stay here with the ship, just like you’d do with yours. Another antique among the antiques. Who knows, maybe the Matari’s have a refined taste for keeping artifacts around after all.”
Rettic looked at him with solemn sympathy.
“Oh don’t you pity me, boy. Don’t you do it.” Sam became as serious as Rettic had ever seen him. “You see, the difference between a capsuleer and a mortal man isn’t that you live and I die. It’s that a man learns to accept death. A capsuleer will always have to live it around him.”
Sam saluted Rettic. “But I’ll try to refrain from pitying you, friend.”
Rettic nodded a sincere thanks to the old man and walked to the door, opening to reveal a flood of over-comm alerts drowned by the droning turbines of Titan doomsday weapons charging outside. Station officers shouted to escort the capsuleer off the docking bridge. He looked back as the shop doors slid shut to see Sam loading a shotgun.
Station debris tore through the hulls of docked ships. A Gallentean woman stood crying, shouting in the floor of the hangar as an enslaved Matari man lay bleeding under a stairway. The escorting officer slowly detached his arm from Rettic’s side as he gasped, a hole ripped through his chest. Families of miners and industrialists stood stranded in their dwelling rooms as their capsuleer fathers and wives flew from the hangar.
Rettic boarded Tensegrity, his Catalyst, and undocked to slowly pass the capital ships fully focused on station fire.
Fare well Fire Star.
Rettic’s Log are the accounts of Rettic in-character, his history, and the story of my experiences in New Eden as seen through his eyes. Read all of them here.
This is also a submission to the Eve Monkey’s Fan-Fiction Blogfest no. 2. See other submissions here.
