A Lesson In How to be an Asshole and Not Walk Away

It's been a really long time since I have written anything. Anything at all. But recently, an event irked me, so let me first start by posting some logs here really quickly.

Wardec chat logz
From: Tassemet
Sent: 2014.05.29 12:40
To: XXX,

Lothar Holdchar > Yes hello
Tassemet > good evening, sir/
Tassemet > I was just looking to inquire into the reason you wardec'd our corp?
Lothar Holdchar > Because 25 million ISK
Tassemet > What do you mean?
Lothar Holdchar > That Raven contract today
Tassemet > Ah haha
Lothar Holdchar > A very insulting offer
Lothar Holdchar > so I'm going to come on up from Stain
Tassemet > Knew it was something market related
Lothar Holdchar > and say hello
Tassemet > I must ask how it was insulting considering I had my market window pulled up and it was showing 170mil buy orders :)
Lothar Holdchar > For a regular raven
Lothar Holdchar > mine had 3 large rigs
Lothar Holdchar > You were asking me to sell you a stripped raven
Lothar Holdchar > Lowballing me by 25 mil
Tassemet > Just trying to make isk, man. No offense, but I was polite :)
Lothar Holdchar > The offer was extremely insulting
Tassemet > I appologize if I insulted you.
Lothar Holdchar > I didn't realize it in first due to being in fleet
Lothar Holdchar > So a wardec is in order
Tassemet > Fair enough, friend.
Tassemet > I wish you the best of luck :)

Now that I have that out of the way, cue lesson.

It seems all too often nowadays that people are being absolute assholes, and I've noticed it ever more since my early days of EvE when I started after Red Moon rising came out. It appears to me that there's been a huge trend towards violence as a means to "put people in line." Now, before you all dismiss this as another scenario of "Boo-hoo. Another care bear whining, the tears they are delicious!" Let me say this.

Violence is unwarranted as a scare tactic.

I'm not scared, not in the least. I mean, sure, I made the guy a low offer as the chat logs explain but honestly, who doesn't play the market game and troll through contracts and look for people who might be looking for a quick sell? I was when I sent out several offers via evemail. And of all those, I must say, only one guy took the high road with a nice reply of "Sorry m8, it's priced fair." No worries.

This guy made the point to laugh at me, throw insults in chat and leave on one character, and then turn around and contact me on ANOTHER character AFTER he said no with only "You're dumb."
Oh and then he proceeds to wardec my corp over a market offer. Ah well.

Lesson to be learned here: If someone makes a market offer, no need to go nuts to the point of wardeccing a corporation to prove a point. Awesome, you know how to pvp. Got it. Go find some enemies out in null that are the real baddies that are threatening to take your space. And while some may argue that taking isk is just as bad, how is twenty five million isk in my favor going to change anything? I'm all about reinvesting and making more isk. So while you have a wardec going that you will keep paying out millions for, I'll just log on with an alt and continue to play the game and have fun.

Who knows, maybe you'll be so broke that you'll come to me asking me to buy your Raven for 170mil.

Ermagurd! Tassemet Is BACK!

Hey all! So once again as my job dictates, I'm back. Yeah. Life is... so so ish, what with my upcoming work schedules and such. But later nights can be filled with a bit of classy drinking, and some gaming, so without much further ado, I present to you, a screenshot montage courtesy of my new gaming rig, named Alessia.

Alessia is an Alienware running some nice high end shit. 2 AMD grafix cards, SATA hard drives, an i7 Intel processor, and 32gb RAM. That's just the basic stats. Externally, it's running a TACX Alienware keyboard that glows with the system case, as well as a Razer mousepad (Goliathus, Speed edition) and I am waitin gon a second monitor, and more paychecks before I upgrade my terribad headset and my semi-terribad mouse.

So, let's start off with the best thing that I have returned back to, EVE Online!

So I just want to put out there that these were screenshots I took with my settings on max, and I get about 120fps running this way, too. The game is absolutely stunning. When missiles hit, I hope you can see the shockwaves they leave on your ship as well as I can on my computer, because blowing your ass up never looked so good. Also, with the interaction with Eve and my Alienware LED case, the keyboard flashes and such when I hit certain milestones in the game (ie shields gone, armor gone, reached destination when on autopilot, etc.) So be sure to spend some money and get one of these things, you'll be glad you did.





And now onward to my favorite cubic game, Minecraft!

So, I've been gone a while and if you haven't kept up with Rooster Teeth Let's Play Minecraft, I suggest you catch up now. And if you've never seen it, google Rooster Teeth Let's Play Minecraft and watch it from the very beginning. And then all 54 episodes they're up to. New episodes released every Friday. And while you're waiting for that to come out, check out their other Let's Plays and be amused. Seriously, they have so much good stuff on their channels.

So, world wise, I have officially downloaded the tekkit launcher for my new machine and I can now run my modded world without lag. Not gonna lie, I had a great idea but... but I'm more focused on the core intent of the game now and solely play vanilla. Anyways, the screenshots aren't on my laptop where I'm blogging from so i'll update that in a separate post.

So, until then!
-TZ

The Role of A Gaming Community In A Game

Let me first start by saying that this blog post was brought about by Minecraft.

I bought my brother a gift card for the game so we can play together, and today, I figured I'd hop onto our world a bit early before him and do some work on a house. Well, instead, I found the "CLICK HERE FOR LIVE MINECON STREAM" on my log-on. So, deciding I could listen to the live stream while playing, I clicked.

And was promptly disappointed.

Let's start with what i do know: Minecon is huge from a few years ago. Much like the one that was held in Vegas, it went from 11 guys and one in a creeper costume to thousands upon thousands. Notch became a hero in less then a year. And now, the venues are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Anyways, I must have caught the Q&A after a presentation, because it was Jeb and a few others of the development team sitting down as kids and adults alike came to the microphone to field their questions to the panel.

Again I was disappointed.

A lot of these kids and adults came to the microphone decked out in their favorite Minecraft gear, hoodies, t-shirts, capes, you name it... and promptly began the "When are you going to add X feature into the game?" And there wasn't just one, it was a whole slew of them. And it wasn't just the kids asking these questions, but the adults too. And it made me remember a quote I had read somewhere, "Minecraft is being built for self-entitled 12 year olds." Now, I disagree to some extent there. I understand that these kids asking these questions are young, and just want an open forum to get their feature added in, much like football fans yell at coaches to run their favorite play, and will do so until the play is run (successfully, I might add.)

Now, one question that was fielded really caught my attention. A little kid stepped up to the mike and asked "How long does it take to add a saddle recipie to the game?" For those of you who don't know, saddles are used on pigs to turn them into a horse of sorts, and you can guide them via a carrot on a stick. And the reply came back, "About 3 seconds. But we're not going to." This drew a sad face from the kid. "We want you to find these saddles in dungeons, because we want less things to be craftable, and more things to be discoverable."

This brought me to realize that gaming communities can't ever hope to directly guide game developers. But they do have 2 indirect roles to play as the community. And those roles are, "Debugging," and "Feedback Reinforcement." In "Debugging," the community submit reports abouts issues to developers or intermediary game masters to get glitches and bugs removed from the game. These can be simple graphical issues, or be complex game breaking mechanics. And then there's "Feedback Reinforcement," which consists of positive or negative reaction from the playerbase. If the reaction is good, the feature stays and maybe gets developed further. However, if the reaction is negative, then the feature may be pulled, or if it can't, the effects of said feature are reduced or downplayed and development stops on it. This Feedback Reinforcement doesn't have to be before a feature hits a game, nor does it have to be instant.  For instance, forum posts. These can be an early indicator, and a late indicator could be months down the road, when people think something is good, but then it turns out it wasn't. In which case, more forum posting, or just whining in game (as is usually the case)

In Minecraft, based on the question that the kid fielded and the response given, I have to feel for the kid. Who doesn't want their idea in a world famous game? But at the same time, I ultimately have to side with the Mojang crew. It is their game after all. If the developers want more content that users have to explore the game to find, then ultimately, that's what the developers want, and no amount of being a big loud fan boy (or girl) at a live event such as Minecon will change that. And while there might be whining in forums of "WE WANT THIS NOW!", maybe eventually there will be a time and place to release said feature, and today might not be that day.

And this doesn't just apply to Minecraft, but other games as well, and one of the most notable examples is the game I played called, "EvE Online." There was one such patch named Incarna that everyone hated. It brought about useless features that nobody used and took out useful features that everyone used. Eventually, CCP Games, the developers of EvE took a good hard look at the direction their company and game development was going after the player base gave "Negative Feedback" on the features of Captain's Quarters and the removal of spinning ships. Another incident in that game was the leaking of a letter called, "Greed Is Good," an internal company newsletter supposedly designed to "Stimulate conversation and ideas" but instead was one of the focuses of the "Jita Riots," an ingame event that took place over a weekend where people piled into the main trade hub of the game to shoot at a statue that is Invulnerable. Again, this form of Negative feedback got things to change, and now the game is going in a direction that everyone can *mostly* agree is positive.

Ultimately, gaming is a business however, and game companies have a duty to listen to their fanbase to keep making money. But they also have a duty to follow their own creative juices and not let a fanbase completely dictate how a game is created. If that was the case, then a lot of good games might head south. To the contrary, a lot of bad games might have been saved and made good. It's a fine line that gamers and developers walk.

But, little kid, don't be upset that Jeb told you no. Keep on gaming and having fun with what the developers of Minecraft have given you, and may give you. Request things on the forums, and get some support from fellow gamers. Who knows, they might have told you no because they have something bigger in store for that feature you requested.

-Tassemet

First Alliance Problems

Whew.

Class is done. Thank god. I was seriously bored and I wanted graph paper to doodle minecraft stuff on. Or eve economics because I had a rough price figure of all the mins in my head. You know, because paying for Oxygen isotopes is expensive nowadays. For those buying/wanting capitals, keep cost in mind. It's not one time like a battleship or cruiser with short spurts spent here and there for ammo or cap boosters. Nope. Shit is constant. And waiting for neuts to leave your jump in system so you can light a cyno is more then annoying too.

On the plus side landing on a station exactly 0km off it while reds are in system is exhilerating. Awww yeah. And I get those ships delivered where they need to go in a timely manner. It is immensely helpful beyond just providing a DPS platform and an oversized triage. Although the triage is nice, I've yet to see it used due to it drawing fire almost immeadiately after entering it's cycle.

In other news, yeah holy crap. Finding it hard to blog today. I'm cracking a monster open at 4pm EST just to stay awake and it's killing me. I really shouldn't stay up late talking but you know there's this girl... Alright. Story for a different time.

So it seems that TEST is making serious headway against -A- since the fall of the 4-0 station. We're getting close. -A- doesn't have much further to run back to highsec. As it is, I believe that peeps are camping them into NPC space where they are trying to regain their breath. And jump carriers out... Which of course one got doomsdayed on the undock. Dumb bastard.

Also on a bit of a bad luck for -A- (course TEST calls it fate), they had a Ragnarock killed by a shit ton of Pandemic Legion Supercaps and Titans. Needless to say, It's was the ole logoffski trap we set. Just goes to show that some people shouldn't be flying expensive ships. Might be best to leave that to those who actually can do it right, or those who aren't stupid.

Right, also, -A-, thanks for undocking to kill rifters you fucking faggots. Can't fight TEST but you'll fight Goons. Especially if you know you will win. Spineless cowards. You all shouldn't rest knowing you killed a few frigs with your tengus still alive... we will find them and we will kill them, rest assured it's just a matter of time.

Anyways, I have a monster to finish. -A-, i'm done shitting on you guys for now. Stand up, give us good fites. And give us more comms in which makalu rages.
-Tassemet

My Second Winter



Returning Home

Well guys, it's been forever. Some days I swear I forget I have a blog. That makes me a terrible person... sometimes it's just so hard to keep up with everything that goes on. Reminds me of an article Goonswarm once wrote about choice paralysis..

Anyways, guess what? I'm in TEST now since my last posts forever ago. And I also fly a carrier, albeit not that great but hey. Working on it. Photos at the bottom of the post.

Anyways, been flying blackbirds when I fleet up. Tons of fun those are! Gotten on several kills mainly because of jamming. Also got on my first ever capital killmail while jamming out a thanatos. This was also the same fight where I was hero repped by the best logi on earth. Came back from 26% structure to stay alive and fight another fight. Also photo of that on the bottom courtesy of (Insert Name here) who was also the would be hero.



Sindel Pellion, @SindelPellion http://www.sindelsuniverse.com/

Ok, so been in a few fleet fights that have triggered TiDi. Makes life easy. Also, been in supercap fights that also triggered TiDi and let me tell you, it's quite a sight seeing so many titans and supercaps on the field at once. It honestly makes me can't wait to structure grind with one (which I eventually want to do) but I'm working on pimping out my carrier first.

Speaking of TEST Alliance, there's been these amazing parodies released by a TEST member named Sindel Pellion. She's awesome, and has an amazing voice, and sings good stuff. She also does a song with a guy in (bleh) Against All Authorities, @DJ_StarStream. Give her a follow over on twitter, @SindelPellion, or visit her site http://www.sindelsuniverse.com/ and read it. GOOD SHIT. Funny shit too. Read it ALL. Also, give to her Angel Project. A worthy cause. I wish she was around when i was trying to afford a missioning Raven. It's about time someone has done something for our new players of eve. Read Here for more info on the Angel Project.

Anyways, gotta wrap this post up. I have another blog to update with more goodies (my writing stuffs) and also a fleet to join to head to Fountain. Time to kill baddies.

Until Then,
-Tass

PS- Photos. All the photos.



Maiden Voyage, Carolyne

BlackBird of Doom





Top: Logi Bro Lovin'!
Bottom: "Bridge is up, GO GO GO!"

CCP Lovin'/CSM Drink Follies

Well, it's another thing I love about eve.

Tweet in on a conversation, laugh, spill your drink, and you get some love from CCP Punkturis herself. Yup, heart and all. It all started with a routine photo tweeted about a female waitress spilling drinks on our beloved CSM members (yup) and rumors swirl on whether or not she's a goon in waitress from. We'll have to see. But, CSM, drinks at 2:30pm in the afternoon? Means that everything is going smoothly! See, I'm guessing that orange soda has something to do with new content. Or maybe an orange soda mixer? We'll never know. But what I do know is thus far, I'm happy with the CSM's progress (I didn't get to vote for my choice, real life move and all that) but still, good to see progress being made, one spilled drink at a time.

As for CCP's interaction with their players (of which I am 50 miles away from being one currently... damn laptop bag is too heavy to fit on my back while I'm on my motorcycle)... I'm impressed. A few years ago, it'd be rare that you'd ever interact with the developers, let alone GM's except in curt replies on your latest reimbursement that that won't give you. In terms of interaction, a letter I sent to the mittani went unanswered. A tweet I said about CCP punkteris was replied within minites. Not that I hate goonswarm, but currently, CCP, 1, Goonswarm leadership, 0.

Oh, and photo proof, cuz I know there's some disbelievers (and those who don't use twitter)

Bringing The Inferno

I'm back waiting to get in game.... the whole game download takes forever...

Damn my laptop for having to toss me a bad hard-drive... again.

EvE Never Takes a Hiatus

It seems that I keep taking breaks from Eve as of late. however, I'm still around. Time to discuss this!
Ok so yeah, for some reason I seem to be bored with eve but I'm sticking with it as best as I can. For some reason I thought running a corp in eve would be easy with only 11 members, but it's a chore some days. Always hauling it seems. So I took a week long break, got some sleep, and I'm back. With a solid and steadfast director, my absence went *almost* unnoticed except when I missed my Friday ops. Ah well, I'm back, and it's time to play!

There isn't a whole lot happening in Eve... if you live in highsec! In nullsec however, supers seem to be getting killed rather regularly, and space is shifting hands at an astonishing rate. One big story however, is RA's current CEO stepping down from power. He admits that he did real money trading with the alliance wallet, and yet it seems people still love him. But when this guy stepping down, RA is taking a huge blow to their leadership and the potential for them to hold space against the ever increasing threat of Against All Authorities. My take on this is hopefully RA does fall, despiite the fact that a few of my friends live in their space, because it owuld be a situation of "Out with the old, in with the new." With over a hundred systems opening up to newer players and alliances, we could see the foundation of new nullsec powers. Although my current guess is that some of the big stars of the nullsec world will just drop down there and scoop it up for themselves. Good old nullsec!


I see a killmail floating around that has been confirmed from multiple sources that a carrier fully faction and officer fit was taken down in a wormhole! Congratulatory words go out to Aperature Harmonics and their crew for such an amazing kill. Hopefully, the pilot of that carrier will learn a lesson and not decide to rat when AHARM comes knocking on their hole- especially not in one worth more then a well fit super carrier. Ah well. An idiot is born every second and EvE is no exception to that rule.
*EDIT* Thanks to a comment from below, it seems that the carrier was actually willingly engaged into the fight. Mad props to that pilot for flying such an expensively fit ship an in attempt to ward off the would be invaders. I must say damn. Balls of steel. Link to the full story on how it went down here.

On another note- I have seen another impressive kill mail, this one comes from highsec and has video proof! A ratting *edit: missioning* megathron thought that he could take down an iteron and well, he was wrong. I can't say i know what the megathron was thinking but let this show to all you pilots that iterons are a lot nastier then you think! Props goes out to Pandemic Legion's own HulkUp for this amazing kill.

For now though, that's all I have! Fly dangerously!
-Tassemet

Crucible 1.1: Wishful Thinking or Half-Planned Release?

We're not even a day into the new release of Crucible 1.1 and already there has been a server restart due to POS. The restart thus far hasn't been commented on as of yet but already rumors as stating it's about the overloaded conditions of the POS fuel bay mixed half with fuel and half with the new fuel blocks that are slated to make POS fueling easier.

Also with this new update comes the customizable NeoCom- Burger King style. Have it your way. Put the icons where you want them, place them in folders- and my personal favorite- the AUTOHIDE feature! Now Eve can be more about spaceships when it counts, and less about them when it doesn't. It also makes finding those browser bookmarks easier amongst other options that are offered in the patch.

While the full effects of the fuel block patch haven't been fully seen it, and probably won't for a long while- my predictions:
- Fuel block prices will double for the next two weeks while corps that didn't prepare buy them in massive quantities
- More War decs
- Higher POS module and tower prices
- More offline POS
- Higher PI prices due to increased fuel block price.

Only time will tell. Join me and watch; Just don't forget to bring popcorn.

New Year, Same Eve

Wow hey all!

It's been a while since my last blog post on all the happenings of Eve, I Tassemet, do appologize for that. Vacation and paperwork on top of other stuff at my job keeps me busy, and suprisingly, I have hardly had time in eve most days to play, but I hope to change that and keep the whole universe abreast of recent adventures and happenings.

And happenings have happened! Let's start with the Goonswarm Alliance conquering the Branch region that was occupied by White Noise. Ok, let's not call it conquering. Let's call it Unopposed Steamrolling. In about two weeks (almost three), Goons managed to take the entire region of Branch from White Noise with little no almost no fighting, which is suprising, considering that many believe it to me one of the oldest alliances in the game. Without trying to sound biased, I must say, White Noise, really? Three weeks to lose a whole entire region? And Goonswarm- props, congratz, gf's, etc. You guys said you were gonna do it and you guys did it. Honestly, I like it because starting the war called for an end to the Ice Interdiction ops that you guys ran. Once again, ice miners can toil and sweat their proverbial asses off mining ice to keep the supers running and the big alliances fighting. Maybe we'll see ice product prices fall or bottom out as the market finally reacts to the end of the blockade.

Moving on to the next big deal- it appears that the Drone Russian Federation (Legion of xDeathX and Shadow of xDeathX) have said NONE SHALL PASS to Intrepid Crossing and Solar Wing/Fleet. For those who watch the sov maps, you might say why. Well, rumor has it (still trying to confirm) that DRF has contracted Pandemic Legion to put their enemies off the map. No word has been given on what exactly the contract entails, but I think it is safe to assume it is against property and ships. Let it be known to all- don't mess with fat lazy cats. They might not be able to defend themselves, but they sure can hire someone to. So mice- don't do it. You will be eaten.

Let's see. New dev blogs show new player requested features! Included in this batch will be a customizable Neocom. No longer will it sit on the left hand side of your screen, but early indicatiosn show it to be movable. For those who like to pew pew, your icons will now blink when you overheat them, and because CCP didn't like that you had to click such a small surface area that would result in you turning off (or on) a module, they introduced a keyboard shortcut Shift Click! Woot.

Let's see what else. Oh. Something i'm coming back to seeign is taxes increased on Planetary interaction goods. Not happy but what can you do about it? Nothing really, except in lowsec/nullsec where poeple are blowing up customs offices and putting up their own at reduced/no tax to their corps or friends. And that's what's nice about these new custom offices: it gives lowsec corps some sort of control over the system they run around in- like 0.0 without the sov. More power to them, as I believe that lowsec is an under populated area. But I'll have a good story piece on that another day, where I'll be interviewing my teacher and fellow peer Yuki Onna.

Apart from those changes- i can't really think of much more, save one little piece that is coming down the pipe- Fuel blocks! They've been kicking around our inventories for the better part of two months now, they've been given to us in the form of actual blocks or fuel block BPO's through CCP's holiday gift giving event (it was two of the 20 or so choices) and pretty soon they will be going live! This new feature promises to be the coolest and most amazing release to happen to eve. Let me explain why. The current system now requires that you have to have a certian quantity of items in the POS tower to pull from per hour. This includes  10 or so different items, and would require for large alliances, spreadsheets worth of data on when to fuel the POS back up. Now, they've streamlined the process. All those 10+ items now get combined into a fuelblock, and the tower consumes so many fuelblocks an hour. The break down is 40/20/10, Large tower, medium tower, and small tower, respectivly. Now, instead of needing to know when to fuel robotics, all you do is fuel the tower, and record the time, and come backa few days before then to top it back off. Simple.

Anyways, it's almost time for me to sleep here- I've been up since 1am my time. Hopefully next time I'll have some better pieces for you all; Moving to Highsec: The Truth Behind the Nullsec Veil, and Scout Reports: 10+ In Local, where i'll interview Yuki Onna and get her perspective on nullsec and lowsec's local populations and some insight as to how to increase it.

Until then all, fly safe or dangerously; it's your choice.
-Tassemet

Official Announcement

WARNING! ВНИМАНИЕ! SOLAR FLEET. EN/RU
From: Kupyc
Sent: 2011.12.07 21:52
To: Shadow of xXDEATHXx,

The Official Statement from Legion of xXDEATHXx of the 8th of Dec 2011.

There will be a standings reset between Legion  of Death and Solar Fleet right after downtime. This tough decision came as a result of all diplomatic attempts, towards our old neighbour Solar Fleet, failed. Drone Regions are no longer the quiet corner of the universe - a war begins now. Not only the ingame war, but political and propaganda warfare: there are already articles on forums, there was  a DDoS attack on our services for the past several hours, our Teamspeak, utilities and billing system.

Alliance Legion of Death is now mobilizing forces to fend off the aggressors and to protect what Drone Regions stood for since the begining.

In addition to direct notice that your welfare is being threatened alliance Legion of xXDEATHXx offers you to stand up for this well-being. Solar Fleet are renowned for the discipline and are a good tough opponent - the war with them will probably become an unforgettable experience. You are welcome to join alliance CTAs. Fleet format, ships and fits will be announced later. This isnt mondatory - join the fleet to experience what you probably wont experience anywhere else.

Regards,  Karer.

-As thus, let the war begin!
-Tassemet

The War Machines of EvE Churn On...

Ok, so in my last blog post I predicted the coming of a large scale war within three to four months.

Well, my post came about two days before Solar Fleet reset the standings towards the alliances of Legion of Death and Shadow of Death. That has kicked off a massive effort to prepare for war- and I myself have been mining ice to fuel capitals. Isk isk baby. This potential war has three options to it- One, Drone Russian Federation wins by a landslide, two- Solar Fleet wins by a landslide, three- each side is evenly matched and we'll be in for a slugfest. Of all the options I like the sound of a slugfest- war is good for industrials.

And to add to that little kicker, I have intel from someone saying Goonswarm is preparing to make a move on the north alliances in an attempt to stir up trouble- although it isn't clear yet whether or not they intend to drive them out of the space and take it, or to just roll through it and cripple all those who stand in their path. Regardless, it'll make for an interesting fight as alliances put their pride and assets on the line in order to subdue their opponents.

Remember: war is good. To my enemies, I say:

Christmas Time

With Christmas around the corner and my own vacation starting in less then two weeks, it's been a fun last week or two, starting with the crucible patch. As my Pandora Radio cranks out tune after tune to add to my christmas spirit, and as my workplace begins to add christmas decorations to our front lobby and lounge, I am once again reminded: It is winter. Yes. It has snowed, EvE has released a new patch, and heralding in this season was the first super capital kill the other day in HED-GP, an old stomping ground of mine that is constantly camped, due to it being a pipe to highsec.

It is rather unfortunate though that he was a scrooge and self-destructed versus fighting the good fight because even with the new changes, he could have taken a few battleships out before being toasted himself. So, it is sad to see this Nyx go to the graveyard without generating a killmail, but i'll still call that a kill. Tis' the season to be killing capitals. And of course, who else would perpetuate such a kill? Why, Pandemic Legion of course! They fought the NC. supercap and killed the pod when it was liberated from within the mass.

Link Here if you want to see PL <-10.0> Kill an NC. Nyx.

On a side note, we had a supercarrier hunt in our alliance the other day as a pilot that was flying a thanatos was attacked and killed by an ev0ke supercarrier. The pilot managed to get his Nyx out before we could get in and capture it with a bubble, and while it was sad, it wasn't exactly a prevented kill. The carrier taken down had no fighters and seemed to be relying only on sentry drones and heavy drones.... so their fault. However, we gave good chase and came up empty. Thanks again to the people who formed up the fleet extremely quickly while my corp and I rallied everyone to the system to try and get the guy. Mad props to your speed.

So speaking of the holiday season and cold, oxygen isotopes are through the roof, almost 1400isk/unit. Goonswarm's "Operation: Interdiction" has thus far been the driving reason behind the price inflation, with the only current places able to get ice and ice products is in nullsec and lowsec, where goons won't venture to place fleets. Besides, on sites such as evenews24.com and from screens I have seen on the web from Kugu forums, it seems that the goons might be in league with the DRF, as a paraphrased quote from The Mittani was stated as "We realize we are handing the Russians a lot of isk. We're ok with that." So any speculation on the fact that it might be the goons trying to inflate ice prices to the point where they would make as much isk as possible selling off stockpiles is clearly wrong. As prices have slumped temporarily I think (winter is coming afterall; even supercaps hibernate too) despite the fact that new fuel blocks will require the oxygen isotopes, it appears that this is being done in an effort to make moving capitals against enemies of Goons or Goons themselves (Gallente capitals only) extremely expensive, and therefore make combat scenarios involving capitals less likely. Well, it might be working. I've heard the gripes and complaints of corps and capital pilots that use their Thanatos for peaceful industrial moving purposes complain of the increasing costs to move stuff around lowsec and nullsec.

And all these leads me to my point: Thank Goons. Despite the fact that they have increased fuel prices, 0.0 ice miners will certainly find their wallets full for all those presents of joy this christmas season. And, despite the fact that there are less capitals fighting and less fighting occuring, I expect that the spring and summer months will will bring about a renewed need for new capitals and industrial handiwork- namely in the measure of dreadnaughts, which right now have seen prices go up 10-25% just for the hulls alone due to the buffs they recieved in Crucible.

As i found out exactly expensive it is to move ships around and goods from high to nullsec via step-off/jump-off systems, I myself plan to get in the market out here and mine ice to sell to my corpies. I've already been offered a massive ice contract which I plan to fill. Myself, I plan to go beyond that and start a stockpile of ice products too- I forsee an increase in fuel prices beyond what they currently are.

So for now, i'm heading out to the ice belt. It's time to quit denying the fact that Winter might not be coming, but that it is actually here, hiding under our frost-bitten noses and that we are keeping it at bay with good cheer, christmas songs, shopping (ingame and out), yule-log fires, PvP and industry.

Fly safe, and Happy Holidays from Tassemet and Elizabeth!

Crucible

(Photo is of the new shaded Drake, thanks to my fellow corp mate and pilot Death for allowing me to photograph)

(Photo of Elizabeth flying a harbinger.)

Two words.

This is...

I'll let you fill in the last word on the new details of the newest eve online expansion to be released. Thus far, only an hour or two into the patch, and the details and patch notes speak for themselves- This is not your momma's expansion. Thus far what i've seen is mind blowing. I'll highlight the chances and drawbacks that thus far I've noticed to be mentionable.

Positives/Advantages
First up is mining lasers- specifically, strip miners. They now have accurate sounds that I think match the style of the ship and the 3D turret animations on our ships. Also included with the strip miners is the new sound effect that goes along with the laser actually hitting the rock. It sounds like it's being buffeted, and a green glow surrounds the site that's being hit. I won't lie, i'm biased for industrialists and it's about time they are getting a little love that they deserve for all their time and effort.

Loot all- FINALLY. It only took CCP a few years to put in a button that cuts down on the clicking that people who endlessly salvage have to do. It will make it faster, more convient, and makes the time requirements to salvage decrease significantly. It made flying by an enemy wreck in space looting take 2 seconds and 2 clicks, one to open the wreck, one to press the button (Loot All). I see this being one of the most used features of this expansion.

The return of the old weapon icons! This makes it easy to be able to identify weapons based on their picture and not have to right click -> get info all the time. So railguns actually look different from blasters and not the visually unimpressive pixelated versions. Hello artwork, we love you <3 Speaking of artwork, they have revamped a lot of the ship's colors to bring them up to par with the new graphics. Also, nebulaes. They are unique per system, and shift slightly when you move to a new system. And to top that off, the gates now face the direction they will send you catapulting through space, and the destination star is quite bright in system.

Last but not least- the new tier three battle cruisers. These bad boys can fit battleship sized weapons while still having the mobility and speed of a battlecruiser. Of the ones introduced, the Talos, Oracle, Tornado, and the Naga, I personally like the visually stunning appeal of the Oracle, with it's golden shimmering hull and smooth curved oblong hull. With some battleship sized weaponry, I forsee these new ships being fast mobile sniper gangs fielded en masse to just tear apart capitals ships, I also see them as close in blaster ships that move fast, shoot fast, and hit harder. With logistics (since these guys can't pack a massive tank) I forsee these fleets becoming a mainstay in alliance and large scale PvP.

Corp Bookmarks- Now we can finally share bookmarks amongst the people of a corp. So now jumpbridges can be shared with the corp and one person can keep track of all of them and modify them as needed. Oh yeah.

Disadvantages/Negatives:
Pinning Windows- Appearently the feature is gone. Forum crying/threadnaughts have been started as thousands attempt to bring the feature back, as appearently it's used by a lot of people. I personally don't use the feature and won't when it gets back, but then again, I'm for the people, and the people cry MOAR PINNIN'!

Supercapital Nerfs- This is by far the biggest debatable item. Many see this is a positive and negative, mostly negative by the large alliances who use massive amounts of capitals as their fighting force. They removed drone bays in dreads and titans, and nerfed the size of the drone bays on supercapitals. Also, they made it so that supercapitals and carriers can only launch fighters. This is all in an effort to increase the use of subcapitals to counter capital fleets. But I think the new tier 3 BC's are the counter we've been looking for. We'll see how it turns out.

New Font- Some hate it, some love it, most don't have an opinion. However, I'll label this as a drawback. The old font was good, and yes there were a few inconsistencies that made it hard to read, and maybe it's just the newness of this font, but the new font seems more cartoony, doesn't scale well with the -a and +A options in the chat windows, and is extremely hard to find a middle ground on size that is neither too big nor too small to fit in certain window sizes. That, and of all the things in the game, the font seems out of place. I'll label it is a negative for now until I either grow use to it, or I still hate it in a month.

For now though, these are just an overview of all the new features and options available to players in EvE. Come check them out and fly with us.

 Until I see you on the battlefield, or in the asteriod belts though, fly safe!

Slippery Slope

Ok guys, exciting news from the homefront, short post but it will have to do, not much to say in it.

I officially love stupid supercap pilots that allow themselves to be found.
I officially hate said supercap pilot for being smart and getting away.

Yup. That about sums up part of my night as me and a fleet wound up trying to chase down a solo Nyx that came a wee bit too close. Unfortunately, bad timing screwed me (and us) over and it slipped our grasp by a second or two. Too bad, as our bubbler was so ready, along with the fleet.

Anyways, yeah fun night for all! I'm going to toss some mad props to the people who fleeted up in record time and rolled with me, and to the valiant cyno pilot who lost his ship and his pod to a random ass fleet that jumped in.

Until then, we shall be on the prowl.
Fly safe!
-Tassemet

-Tassemet

CCP Live Event Hot-dropped

In the afternoon hours (evening for some), a CCP fleet leaving Polaris arrived in Tama, where they were stationed for a while camping a gate. Hilarity ensued, as well as lag as hundreds swarmed to take a shot at their favorite Dev. Approx 600+ were in local (according to my laggy local chat) and things went swimmingly for about an hour, to ninety minutes- players attacked devs, and they attacked back, fielding mainly amarr apocs with what appeared to be blaster megathrons, with guardians for logistics support.

Then... they were all hot-dropped.

Pandemic Legion, deciding they wanted all the wrecks (loot/drones) for themselves, hotdropped in approximately 6-8 titans (numbers were unconfirmable) and a dozen supercarriers as well as carriers for triage. They then proceeded to clear the field with whoever remained straggling (including myself), where I don't have anything solid past that.

However, a pirate group sat camping the only station in the system, getting kill after kill as people attempted to loot the field (including myself), and looting it for themselves. All I know is, this event seems to have been a success, until Pandemic Legion showed up. Lag reduced towards the end when the capital fleet jumped in... however, I fully expect to see a fight on that gate as other alliances take advantage and jump in capitals of their own and attempt to take on the PL fleet, however, as I am not on grid, I cannot confirm that that is what will happen.

Rest assured, someone (ahem PL ahem) will be making off with a handsome profit of loot, ammo, drones, salvage, and whatever other goodies that CCP has decided to have stored in their cargo bays. I had fun- mainly because it was the first time I have seen titans on a grid, let alone more then one. I hope everyone else had fun too! It certainly was a way to start the Thaknsgiving Weekend!

Some Photos from the Event:

I like Big Belts And Long Blog Posts and...

Greetings to my fellow readers!

Today's blog post will be following some stuff on planetary interaction, more 0.0 living issues, how to avoid being a target, and how to have fun safely in nullsec while still being in danger. Oh, and skill updates. Heck yes.

Ok, so let's start with planetary interaction. So far, i have been extracting on my planets nonstop making mechanical parts and consumer electronics just stockpiling as much as my planets can produce. Thus far, if I started robotics production, i'd easily get about 100 robotic units. That totals out to about 4-6 million isk, just resetting the extractors and exporting the P2 goods. Right now, I'm running a barren planet and a lava planet, and both are just extracting away and processing...

While moving about in friendly space in fragile ships with neutrals and hostiles about, there's a few important things to know. One important one is to use your intel channel. No doubt, this thing has saved my life on numberous occasions. It has also screwed me over, since intel reported is usually old 30 seconds later. In 0.0, the distance between populated systems is also great, so sometimes a fleet might be 13 jumps away, then 2 jumps because there was nobody between the two points to report anything. It happens though, that if they make it into your system, and a fight is imminent, or they are trying to scan you down, that you have a tool that gives you an idea how much time you have left. It's called Directional Scan, or D-Scan for short. It allows you to see what is in space (not necesaily how far away it is), which allows you to see fi there are probes dropped in space, or even ship types of your enemies. This is limited though, to a certain scan range, so you may see probes on scan, but if the ship is outside your scan range (due to large solar systems) you may not see the owner.

Now, you may think that this is all a lot of risk in nullsec for a small gain. Well, let me tell you, it's a large gain. If you are a miner, and your system has an infrastructure hub, you can get gravimetric sites which allow you to mine in hidden asteriod belts. Now, the rats that spawn will be battleships and below, and sometimes there are 1-3 battleships a spawn, but this varies. For best results, it is easiest and safest to mine with a buddy, or in cases like mine, have one account tank the spawn and allow the other account to mine away peacefully. When it comes time to haul, take one of your characters and kill the spawn, and haul the ore. Then, repeat the process. Out here, one rock can net you 60 million isk alone. One rock! Worth it if you ask me.

Finally to do the skill updates.

Tassemet is progressing quickly towards tech 2 sentry drones. Only last night he finished drone interfacing V, which allows me to do another 20% damage with my drones. Right after that, he started training sentry drone I, II, and III. III finishes later tonight, and IV starts right after. Then, he'll be forced to wait approximately 25 days to finish sentry drone V. What a pain. It seems Tassemet is powering through some of the worst time length skills ever. But, it will be worth it when he flies a carrier, or when he flies a Dominix and powers his way through Hordes and Sanctums.

Elizabeth is still working on Amarr Industrial V. It finishes in a little less then a week. After that, I have nailed down the final draft of her skill plan, which will have her flying a harbinger that can tank rat spawns. She may not be able to kill them, but tanking for now will be enough. While she serves a useful purpose of keeping dornes off Tassemet while he mines, she will be training her support skills to be able to fit the Harbinger better, and it will eventually culminate in her having the skills necessary to be fully tech 2 fit and battle ready.

For now though, Elizabeth is hauling ore and Tassemet is mining with a buddy. And speaking of rats... here come some now for me to kill...

The Fledglings Rise Against!

Well!

It's been one of those days where after taking care of all the things I need to go about my day are done that I once again settle into flying spaceships! Today, I decided to answer questions in the Rookie Help channel. Now, despite the fact that I can't stand people begging for isk constantly, there are some very bright and intelligent rookies in the up-and-comings. Despite the fact that I thought my eyes would bleed, somehow explaining to a new person why it is better to fly around in a shuttle then just a bare pod brought me to realize a few things. One- my memory of this game and playing it for the past six years is amazing. Two- it reminded me of the basics of PvE and PvP. And last but not least, 3- it reminded me how fun it is to be a new person flying around the wonders that veteran players take for granted.

Today, i've been mining a lot and looking over the things that I would love for Elizabeth to fly, and I think that I will be training her support skills and get her working towards a completely tech 2 fit Harbinger. This will allow her to realize the potential of being a support character and will allow her to make isk ratting and since she is finishing up Amarr Industrial V in a few days, she will be able to haul with the ability to move to a Providence within a week or two.

Plans for this upcoming week include more mining and maybe seeing if i can get a ship or two built, as well as finishing up Tassemet's training of Drone Interfacing V. From there, I plan to expand on sentry drones, since they will provide me immediate usage (versus something like Jump Drive Operation V which is only good once I have the capital ship), and from there, we'll see.

For now though, Elizabeth will haul, Tassemet will mine, and I will blog of our adventures and plans!

Just Like Good Times.

Well, it has been a few months since I last set myselfto the task of making a blog post. My sincerest appologizes to any of my readers who suddenly found their evening reading material gone. Consider it back now.

So, what i've been up to in the last few months. Well, a lot has happened. I've gotten more sleep, gotten better grades, and played more eve now that schooling is for all intents and purposes, done. Since the last blog post, I have moved corps once, made a few friends, and then moved back to 0.0 with my friends Southern Comfort Armaments. Coming back to their space, a lot has changed. They now have allies, and an outpost, which makes asset handling and corp hangar access better and more efficient. And, I also have a friend I play with, she hauls for me now, and I'm putting her into a freighter as fast and as soon as possible to help facilitate the movement of raw goods, either alloys or ore, to a refining station. And seeing as how Arkonor, Bistot, and Crokite are heavy, dense ores (approx. 16m3 per unit) being able to move a large volume of ore becomes an absolute necessity.

As for me, Tassemet, I have finished a few amazing skills and started new ones. The big one that I am most satisfied with thus far is Gallente Battleship V. Thus far, it has proven to be useful not only for moving over to carriers, but to augment the current battleships I currently fly. A few other skills are minor and have helped in small ways, but also move me towards a larger goal. One of those skills was Drone Interfacing, of which I currently have a 16 day train left on it. This will allow me to use fighters and progress ultimately towards my goal of flying a carrier in null security space.

Other things that have happened is my mass amount of mining I have done. I have run a lot of lasers and hybrid guns to get ore and alloys. I have refined the alloys and will use them to build ships to sell out here at this station, and the ore I will sell to my corp to avoid the hassle of moving it for now. I will admit, it is a wonderful feeling of having my local chat pulled out of the chat window to keep an eye on local. I missed that about highsec. it was too safe, and not very profitable. While I was there though, i did get a lot of veldspar mining in, and coincidentally, that is what we mine for out here in nullsec. Aquiring highend minerals is easy, but we don't use very many. However, tritanium is not so easy to come by. Everyone mines the high ends to profit as much as possible and trit and veldspar are all but forgotten in most cases. But that is one thing i like about being out in nullsec... I get all the minerals I need where ever I so look.

Until next time I post though, I shall be mining and having this arkonor and bistot hauled for me...

Logistics Are a Pain

My appologizes for the long time since I last blogged, I haven't gotten much eve time (or time to myself) due to studies and job constraints


As I've said before, and I'll state again, nothing in nullsec is easy. I have been accused of leading people astray with how easy it seems to make isk out here; Let me highlight the reasons it isn't safe and easy, but dangerous and hard.

The first thing out here that is a pain is sometimes the lack of a station, or an outpost as they are known in 0.0. This means you can't dock, can't have a proper hangar, and defenitely not a proper ship bay. Until you get one placed down, which can cost upwards of 15+ billion, you have to live out of something called a player owned structure, or POS. The POS usually consists of a tower, gun and associated offense modules, shield hardners, and a corporate (key word there) hangar array, and a ship maintenence array. In this small area, you and about 10-15 of your corpmates will store all your items, ships and loots. It's not like a station where you have a personal hangar- depending on how everything is configured, you might have to share your hangar with everyone. This can be an inconvienience because everyone can and will have access to all your stuff. Not only does that mean they can use it, but in some cases, they will use it. In my current situation, we all have noctis' that we rotate between us, same with Hulks as well. Oh yeah, did I mention the limited space? 1.4mil per corporate hangar. 20mil m3 for the ship hangar. For 10 people. Do the math.

Another thing is logistics, or getting the stuff out to where I live. Most people simply just fly stuff about. Not so here. Out here, gate camps are nightmares. So instead we turn to the almighty jump freighters and carriers, and Rorquals. Jump Freighters move goods for us in mass quantities. Carriers carry our ships, and Rorquals are used to compress ore and do a mixture of the above two jobs. However, not everything can be brought in, some things have to be built on site and moved via freighter- and a freighter in nullsec is a very dangerous thing.

Oh, and did I mention the costs of living? So far, my wallet hasn't gone positive or negative, but imagine a world where people get items or make them and then mark them up 20% of jita price, just because they can. So you either buy something or you make it. And therein lies the problem- making things. In my current position I have no station, I live in a POS and we can't really make things, so we have to have them moved in the old fashioned way- via said methods above.

So that's how awesome nullsec is. So before one of my readers says such statements as, "Tass, I think you;re leading young sweet things to their deaths with your blog," I feel I have explained both the positives and negatives associated with nullsec. So, before jumping out here, consider both sides. It can be worth it if you are well skilled and properly prepared. For those who aren't the only thing that is certain is death and clone taxes.

I am prepared to do what I need to profit...