THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT.

Eve is full of genius and talent.

Fly like you’re a god

-Ze

Fly using your interpretation of what is “right”

-Ze

We in OUCH do bubble camps. A lot. We’re pretty good at it, too. We have students in lightly fitted frigates providing tackle, while operations members supporting with DPS and EWAR. It works well for an instructional corp as we introduce students to the world of null-sec EVE. Camps allow for multiple time zones to participate as well as allowing people to drop in and out as their real life dictates without too much disruption. Plus, they’re fun. With proper intel, losses should be few as the camp gets to dictate who and what is engaged.

We’re constantly berated, though, by locals, large fleets, and even some (former) alliance mates:

1. Camping again? Isn’t that boring?
2. That’s not real PVP
3. Why don’t you engage us?
4. ECM is for fags/gays/pansies/queers/etc
5. You have a Falcon, so you’re being pussies for running.
6. You use too much ECM.
7. You’re teaching the wrong things
8. That’s lazy
9. That’s too easy

-Camping isn’t boring. If it was, I wouldn’t do it. Mining is boring. It is boring not because I sit in one place for hours; it is boring because it is mindless repetition. Camping isn’t mindless. If you are mindless, you die. You have to be aware of traffic at all times. We’ve been covert cyno’d and Titan bridged. Nothing gets the blood going when a BS fleet with a Thanatos drops on your head.

Some folks do get tired of camping, and they move on. That’s fine. Anyone can get tired of anything. If you think that you are bored with it, no problem. We have plenty of corps and Alliance mates that do other things. OUCH camps. Move on.

-What is PvP? Player versus player. We’re not ratting out there. We go up against other pilots. Some are unaware of our presence or make mistakes. Some are actively trying to kill us. How is that not PvP? What is the difference between a blob roam and a gate gank? If it isn’t PvP, what is it? Would we lose ships? And why do I have 629 kills to 48 losses? Why have I inflicted 20 ½ billion ISK of financial damage? Why have I lost 400 million ISK?

-We run when we do not have an advantage, pure and simple. Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War, wrote:

III- Attack by Stratagem

…

8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy’s one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.

9. If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him.

10. Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force.

We have anywhere from 1 to 120 ship fleets roll through our corner of Curse. We can have anywhere from 1 to 20 camping at any given time. Why in the world would we engage a fleet bigger than ours? We have before, but with particular advantages. If we can provide overwhelming DPS, EWAR or other tactic, then we will. Some FCs are more confident in our abilities than others. When I first became an OUCH FC, I was very skittish. Nowadays, I tend to linger almost a bit too long, or wait too long to make a decision.

-ECM exists in game. I see gangs and fleets roll through with Falcons, Kitsunes and Blackbirds. They have a definite strategic value, either to prevent incoming damage/webs/scrams or to prevent EWAR from the opponent. Yes, it sucks to be jammed. I have been jammed in my Kitsune (yes, I’ve started to fly a few Caldari ships…eww) by a Falcon I was trying to jam. It sucks. However, that Falcon still died with no effective EWAR on our side. Why? Because ECM does not make for an automatic win. That pilot had to ensure he jammed me, thus not allowing for jams on the rest of my fleet. Which brings me to…

-Yes, we have a Falcon/Rook/Blackbird/Kitsune/Griffin. Maybe an additional one you don’t know about. However, just because an ECM ship exists does not mean we’re going to engage. ECM ships are almost always primary. Thus, we have to be pretty sure the high damage, long range ships will be jammed or taken out quickly. ECM ships don’t tank for shit. Their tank IS the ECM mod; their buffer is range. IF we don’t think our pricy ships will tank damage, why should we engage? Sometimes we’ll engage and not de-cloak a Falcon until certain ships are taken out.

-Too much ECM? That’s like saying “You use too much DPS” or “You have too much speed” or “You fit too much armor” or “You have too much logi”. This is usually said by gangs who have lost or have gotten run off by our measly camp. We were able to counter their speed advantage or logi advantage or whatever with some ECM. It is our advantage. We don’t always have ECM. But we wield it when we can.

Some of our opponents who know our advantage try (and are successful sometimes) different tactics, like hot drops, ECCM, drones and smartbombs. Cloaky Anathemas providing warp-ins on our Blackbirds are a threat, as well as a pair of bombers doing the bomb-then-torpedo tactics on ranged ships. There are ways. Complaining about getting owned by ECM is, well, just sour grapes.

-This should read “You guys don’t teach 1vs1 or roams”. That is true. However, we’re a null survival corp. We are not a PVP primary corp. PVP is just a part of null-sec survival. We teach on the bubble because it facilitates our Carebear noobs what shooting others is like. Roams are more complex, and very few honor 1vs1 in null, and even if they do, they know of an advantage that you don’t. Thus, newbies in T-1 ships will get podded quickly.

-Yes, camps are lazy in the sense that fishing or duck hunting is lazy. You sit there, shoot the shit, drink beer, and then get a few minutes of pure excitement. Then, it’s back to drinkin’ again. How many times have you been on a 30 jump roam and not able to engage anything? We just didn’t move. No, we didn’t have to deal with the headaches involved with scouting and moving ships about. And, seriously, dropping a dictor bubble on a gate to catch a straggler or two is exactly what we’re doing. We just don’t use the 10 Drakes, 4 Huginns and 5 Tempests and the Broadsword you have to do the killing.

-Come FC a camp with us on a busy Sunday afternoon and tell me that it’s easy. Afterwards, if you said it was, then we probably lost half the gang with a few kills. No, it isn’t like a 1200 ship megabattle. No, it isn’t like a 50 ship BS/BC fleet roving. And no, it isn’t a speed gang of Cynabals and Dramiels racing through systems.  It may be less difficult than those, but not easy. Make sense?

Camping is an aspect of gameplay which we as a corp promote. It is our game, our EVE, that we choose to play. ECM is a utility that works very well in this sort of gameplay. It isn’t a perfect instant-win tactic. We lose ships, but we do kill a lot more.

Oh, and killing our bubbles is just a slight inconvenience, nothing more.

Fly like it is what you want to do.

-Ze

Over at the Altruist, Azual Skoll is covering Tech I cruisers. Azual Skoll’s  guides are  a good reference, whether you agree with his assertion or not. They provide some insight on how the ships are perceived by EVE vets.

In OUCH, we do a lot of bubble camping in various spots in Curse. You can break down the  basic needs of a camp: Mobile warp disruptor/interdictor, tackle, & DPS. EWAR/ECM are an added benefit, but not necessary. Same with scouts, boosts and logistics. Catch…hold…kill. It is a simple concept.

Tackle is usually accomplished by a frig or interceptor/frig combination. DPS can then be brought in. However, light tackle ships are fragile. So, an addition of “heavy tackle” is added, typically a cruiser which can apply webs and scram while tanking any incoming damage. DPS may or may not be a function of the particular setup, which just depends on fleet makeup and FC wishes.

In the OUCH forums, there has been a thread concerning the heavy tackle role and fittings suited for it. The ships tended to be armor heavy with medium guns. Moas, Stabbers, Thoraxen and Ruptures were selected for various reasons. However, except for Stabber shield speed fits, the ships are slow. Some were delighted that their barge made it up to 1000 m/s with an overheated MWD.

I really don’t like the idea of a super tanky ship being used as tackle. Admittedly, a bubble camp’s layout should prevent any long distance runs. A small bubble should keep a centered ship within 10km of its target, well within an overheated scram range. Blaster boats will have to move somewhat, but not far.

However, I truly believe the role of “medium tackle” should exist. A nimble cruiser with small guns and an active tank with no more than an 800mm plate or a Trimark setup, which should work fine. Why?

The United States Navy, back in-between WWI and WWII, was limited on ship displacement as well as gun size. The term light cruiser was given a definition by the London Naval Treaty of 1930. Light cruisers were defined as cruisers having guns of 6.1 inch (155 mm) or smaller, with heavy cruisers defined as cruisers having guns of up to 8 inch (203 mm). In both cases, the ships could not be greater than 10,000 tons.

So, a lot of light cruisers were built. When WWII broke out, some of the light cruisers (US Navy hull designation CL) were designed for anti-aircraft operations. Basically, they were “heavy frigates” more than true battlecruisers.  They were effective against small vessels, aircraft and some saw limited ASW duty. Against a battleship or heavy cruiser fleet, however, they obviously couldn’t repel firepower of that magnitude.

For bubble work, I do believe the heavy frigate conception is perfect. A Thorax with a small active tank and inertia stabilizers, couple with light blasters, makes for an effective CL. A full rack of heavy neutron IIs with Null, web, scram, MWD, gun rigs and mag stab makes for still a formidable punch. Even more so, the ship can protect the frigates. How?

By shooting drones. With the small blasters, alpha-ing light drones is common. Medium drones take a few rounds as do heavies. Drones shooting you? No prob. The active tank should help.

Of course, the decision to go after drones should be balanced against the type of ship being shot. If you have a Stabber tackled, no worries. Just kill the ship. Drake? Kill the drones first. Dominix? Well, hmm. Let’s hope you have tons of DPS and some ECM.

I like flying my heavy frigate Thorax. The ship has a sub 6 second align time, which makes the GTFO moments obtainable (that’s if I don’t forget to turn off the MWD). EHP varies, depending on which program does the calculation, which can be from 10-17000.

Ruptures with Autocannons would be as effective, albeit with less punch. Neuts would need to be used. Of course, if neuts were applied to any of the cruiser setups, the cruiser will probably be in trouble. More than once have I had to slowboat out of neut range to stay alive. If your ship isn’t on fire, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Fly like it’s WWII in the Pacific.

-Ze

2nd Anamoly Fron the Left (Orakkus) – Gone

A Mule in Eve (Manasi) – Left EVE

A Scouts Domain (LumenariousRex) – Gone

Hands Off, My Loots (Cyberin) – Hasn’t posted since March 2nd, gonna take him off.

Life in Low Sec (Mynxee) – Pretty much retired from EVE as she is pursuing other things.

Python Cartel (Defenders of Pen Island) and Helicity Boson, Khanid Pirate – Helicity got perma-banned, which was the last nail in Python’s coffin.

Skyes Super Happy Fun Pirating Blog! Wait what? (Andrea Skye) – No posts since last year.

And some that were in my personal queue and not listed on the site:

 Eve Newb (Spectre3353) – Perpetual “I’m gonna quit guy” who last posted last year.

 Tul’s Space Stories (Tul Kezad) – A promising blog that didn’t make it.

Wherever I May Roam (Yargok) – Left EVE, with a bitter taste in his mouth.

Tech 2 Duct Tape – Another good blog no longer updated.

Kirith Darkblade Eve Pirate – Almost a year since last update.

Where the Frak is My Ship? – On hiatus from EVE.

Rum and Ransom – No longer being updated

Rustbucket Outlaw – Gone.

The Wandering Druid of Tranquility (Ga’Len) – This one made me a sad panda. Retiring from EVE.

If you don’t see it, well, stare a bit longer. You can see the sailboat if you just look beyond the image.

I will be adding new links, soon. I just wanted to give these guys a nice send off. Farewell fellow bloggers and capsuleers. You will be missed.

Fly like you haven’t quit.

-Ze

They all cloak.

Yes. in Curse, everything cloaks, evidently.

Wanting to get in some pew-pew, I log in to find a fleet up camping a gate in Curse. After the standard process of joining the fleet, I settle in in my light tackle Incursus. We waited, hoping the American Independence Day holiday would bring tons of traffic.

Well, it did bring tons of traffic, in nice 30+ ship fleets. Not something our bubble fleet was equipped to handle. Of course, we employed the tactic of “running like screaming little girls” and sat at tacticals and safes for that kind of fleet. During an extended time away from the bubble as two of the big fleets clashed on the opposite side of the system, I sat at a deep on-grid near the bubble, keeping tabs on traffic, perhaps maybe getting the drop on a panicky passerby.

Then I saw it: a Pilgrim had hit the bubble. But this pilot was not with one of the fleets. He and his alliance buddies in Sedition had been around our home system, and I guess he either forgot or was trying to entice an attack. I relayed the information to the FC. We’d see more of him.

Once the bubbled gate became manageable again, we took station on our camp. Our Pilgrim friend was still in system, most likely hanging out around our bubble. Intel began chirping away with the fact that a Vagabond and a Stilleto were next door, hanging out near the gate. We knew they were going to make a play.

The Vaga came in system, and they started their game. The Pilgrim decloaked. I rushed to it, as there was some hesitation wether or not we should fall for this “trap”. Our interceptor pilot as well as our other light tackle engaged and held. The fight was on.

There was difficulty in getting jams on the Pilgrim from our ECM support, but he was able to jam the Vaga. He also had the Stiletto as well once they moved into position. The Pilgrim had drones out and was neuting our interceptor. Fortunately ECM was able to get a jam cycle in to let him recover. The drones, however, were mad.

Damage was coming into the Pilgrim as fast as we could deal with the three T-1 frigates plus a stealth bomber. The armor tank was holding on the Pilgrim about 50% when we started to lose tackle. I was well into structure when I finally gave up and warped out, alerting the FC of my intentions. The order was given for the remaining crew to bail if they haven’t already, as a 4th ship, a Drake, was entering the field. All ships got away. No kills, but no losses. A gf was had in local as I received reps to patch up the 77% of hull I was missing.

You think this would be the end of this story, but no.

Our foes decided to stay on our bubble…….cloaked. The Drake took position and hid. The Pilgrim warped into the bubble, decloaking the Drake. They both cloaked back up. Then the Vagabond. The inty pilot left system to return in a Hurricane, which approached our bubble and cloaked.

Four cloaked ships. On our bubble.

What were they thinking?

Of course, our bomber pilot/FC  saw everything from his perch. He relayed the information and we all had a laugh . This went on for some time. They claimed 8G in the name of Sedition, for what that was worth.

Fortunately, we weren’t missing any kills. I half wished one of those 30 man fleets would go slamming into the bubble and kill them. THAT would have been awesome.

FC had our inty pilot go to a tactical and pretend he’s “looking for them” by jetting off toward planet VI. That feint didn’t work . We toyed with the idea of blowing up the bubble. We didn’t have enough DPS from the lone stealth bomber. A second bomber moved into position, but then again, bubbles are tough. Our bomber decloaked and targeted cans. Their fleet decloaked, most likely thinking it was a bombing run. A few cans down, but the fleet re-cloaked in position.

The inty was directed to MWD through the bubble. They would have no chance in catching him. He did as instructed. No one decloaked.

Then, the idea was hatched. Maybe we could steal our bubble back by having the inty zip in to unanchor it, then zip back and pick it up. Could it work?

Everyone listened in to the play-by-play as inty-man flew in and unanchored the bubble. He zipped back out. When the bubble was down, he flew in again. Now, of course, it takes a little more piloting skill to pick up a bubble doing Mach V, and he did bounce around a little. The Pilgrim decloaked and chased, but our man got away with our bubble safely in his hold.

And…..

That fleet cloaked back up in that position.

Without a bubble.

Really.

Their fleet eventually moved on after they gave some lack-luster smack talk in local. We had won: we lost no ships to their trap, we got our bubble back, and we held our system.

Nice work guys. And crazy-ass work by our Inty man.

Evidently the shit has hit the fan in New Eden.

Of course, I wasn’t aware of what was going on in Jita and Amarr with the “protests”. I was happily camping gates in Curse.

Except traffic was light. Like 0200 on a Tuesday light. Yes, we had the typical -A- fleet roll through, off to go kill something, which they’re damn good at (I rarely see -A- in pods from those fleets). But small gang and indy traffic was very, very light.

Of course, we checked the stats and it showed approximately the “normal” logged-in numbers. So, WTF was going on?

I thought it must have been me….but then I found out about the “protests”.

Now, I do use the word in quotes here, because it looked more like ass-hatery and lulz than protests, but whatever. I can only read about it and watch the Fraps of the rainbows hitting indestructable objects. Um, that’s fun?

Not for me. And the notion that you could crash Jita is nonsense. It runs on it’s own node and is capped. That means that is the system is full, you ain’t getting in. Those who trade there know this sickening feeling, waiting at the gate in Perimeter for your “turn”. A better choice would have been something like Dodixie, but I digress.

Whatever. Why the rage? It couldn’t have been what I wrote about, could it? People pissed at, well, expensive avatar jewelry?

Evidently not. There has been a stream of leaked CCP documents as well as oddly worded and insulting Dev blogs. Also, financials have been inerpreted as CCP going broke by October.

So, after some thought and on-bubble chat with my fellow corpies and alliance mates, I thought I’d weigh in on some of these topics-

•  Incarna and Captain’s quarters.

Evidently, CQ doesn’t run for shit on ATI cards. Well, since that affects about 50% of the marketplace (purely a speculation), that was not a good move by CCP. As pointed out by a fellow blogger (I forget who, sorry. I don’t take notes and I read a lot of em), EVE ain’t Crysis. Perhaps CQ’s development team jumped too far ahead in technology. Not everyone in EVE pilots from behind a Falcon Northwest. My Quad Core XP-32bit machine with maxed RAM and dual 8800 Ultras in SLI ran CQ ok, but not enough to keep it turned on. Loading was long, which added to my session timer issues. I want to go fight.

Incarna is pretty much an annoyance, IMHO. But, not enough to get pissed about. I don’t like the small blaster looks or sounds, but that is just a preference. Warrior II’s sound like they’re shooting large artillery, not autocannons, but that is amusing. The lack of spinning ships in stations (and no, spinning them in the fittings window isn’t the same) is purely a loss for nostalgia. Again, no biggie.

Not having any true content in CQ is very disappointing, though. There was a lot of development for just what really amounts to as a demo. I develop code, but it is for industry, using a language developed in the 1980′s on equipment built in the early 1990′s. It has to be more difficult to develop an immersed 3-D environment, but really, this is it? I don’t think CCP got their money’s worth out of this product, at least not yet.

•  Noble Exchange

There is nothing inherently wrong about the Noble Exchange. Buy Aurum using PLEX, buy shit, sell shit, buy some more. Easy peasy. Now, the prices are ridiculous and border on the insane, but that is more of a marketing blunder.  Thus, NE is totally, 100% not my game. Just like ice mining, moon goo, R&D, trading, etc, there is plenty of things in game I have no direct use for. Now, NE currently is the only thing that doesn’t affect me indirectly in game, so that is even better.

Except, of course, if one could buy “useful” items from it. Then, NE will directly affect my gameplay. And it would affect all other aspects of the game directly as well. Researching a blueprint which someone buys, using ISKies I gave them for a PLEX they bought, then selling it to another, who builds a ship from it, in which I contract for, indirectly affects our collective gameplay. Each transaction is direct, but overall the play is indirect (following me on this?)

Buying stuff from NE would directly affect all of our gameplay. No PLEX to pay for the blueprint. No need for the blueprint (ship is in store). R&D couldn’t sell blueprint because the ship manufacturer would not have a customer (me, cuz I bought my super shiny direct from a phantom nobody).

It is not synonymous with buying PLEX with cash and ISKing it out.   That just frees up capital to keep the EVE economy going. NE selling shinys and ammo pulls out capital from the EVE economy and makes it disappear. There is a big difference.

BUT……………………………… 

I have found nowhere in all of this mess that NE will actually sell the non-vanities.  The leaked memo/newsletter/shit-storm-starter shows an argument by some for selling stuff for profit. Now, remember, this newsletter is an internal CCP brainstorming-style item. I haven’t read it 100% through, but neither has 99% of the pitch fork bearers out there. And it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t a press release. Also remember that although CCP is a public corp, it is majority owned by…. the founding members and staff (along with a venture capital corp General Catalyst Partners and the “mysterious” Novator Partners). So, it would make sense that staff, owners of said corp, would like to increase revenue. Of course, well hopefully, common, business and economic senses would really drive the decisions.

•  Lack of CCP saying they won’t do non-vanity NE business

They cannot say they won’t. They’d be lying to you. They’d also might be lying to you if they said they would. They know it is a touchy subject. Say yes, and the player base gets nicked. Saying no and then later having to do so nicks the player base as well. It is a no-win situation for CCP. Silence is the best alternative here for CCP.

“Business” and “future” are words that should not be used in the same sentence. One cannot predict accurately what the real world economy will do in 6 months, much less 2 years. Who knows? So, saying 100% no is not a wise thing for CCP to promise. It’s like Schroedinger’s Cat: both possibilities exist simultaneously, until you open the box and measure. We won’t know until the future, and until then, they will AND they won’t.

Some want at least to have CCP say there are no plans for the vile micro-transactions. This may be some key words and tricky phrases that allows CCP to save some face…unless they do have plans, in which some rabble-rousing would be justified.

Again, silence on this subject is probably the best.

• Total smugness by CCP senior devs.

CCP devs have a lot of leeway in they communicate with the EVE gamers. Unforunately, that leeway seriously bit them in the ass. NONE of the Dev blogs addressing the issues here should have ever been posted. If the blog entries were reviewed by the PR department, the PR department needs to be canned. They were smug, full of condescension, and very insulting. Rule #1 when addressing an audience: never speak solely from emotion. CCP Zulu did, and he made himself look like a jerk. In fact, he made himself look as petty and immature as the forum flames he was addressing.

He stooped to their level, and looked stupid for doing so.

It isn’t that he shouldn’t be filled with emotion. This is his work people are raging about, and that gets taken personally. He needed to write it, sleep on it, and then have staff review it. And not just Icelandic senior staff. You see, Americans are a funny lot. We tend to think of Europeans (and especially Nordic ones) as being pretty stuck up. They aren’t generally, but Yanks are sensitive. What would seem perfectly acceptable between Icelanders may be totally misconstrued in, oh let’s say, California. That’s the PR rep’s job to make sure that doesn’t happen.

But, the freedom of the blogs added fuel to the fire. Add to it the utter cluelessness and  loss of grip on reality during the explanation of NE prices as well as why people were upset made it a billion times worse. I sincerely hope he mispoke and that what he meant didn’t come across properly. He’s a smart chap, so I’ll give him some leeway.

•  Financials

Another item that has hit is the public financial statements for CCP  Games. Now, I have yet to number crunch them, but on the outside it looks like CCP is making dough. Ok.

But, remember, EVE is full of very smart bean counters. And the beans they see is that CCP will be short some dough come October. I am assuming it is so that they have some money that they can secure some long term financing, but I am not 100% on that. Regardless, does any of the above issues apply to this issue?

No.

Why? Because the amount of money to be collected would nowhere be close to what the supposed amount (8 million from last I read) needed is. And, during expansions, companies tend to run in the red. Short term finances should give way to long term ones after a while. I see business cycles like that at work constantly. And the rumor that CCP is about to be bought? Only if the majority share holder cash in….remember, those same devs…..

• CSM to the rescue?

All in all, things have gotten quite out of hand. The breakdown of player responses are:

1. Incarna is great! Just lookies! LOVE IT
2. Fix sov, dammit!
3. Fix lowsec, dammit!
4. None of this stuff applies to me. Who cares?
5. HTFU everyone! Pussies.
6. Fucking CCP trying to rape me!
7. Fucking CCP is going to rape me, so I quit!
8. Continuum! Continuum!
9. My faith in CCP is gone. I quit. And no, you can’t have my stuff.
10. My ATI melted. Fuck you CCP.

Read here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

Shall I continue? It seems the pointless addition of Aurum and Noble Exchange has really pushed the button of a number of pod pilots. The items are evidently extremely eff’n expensive, even for vets.

That’s right. So, my take of the vanity items charade having a high entry fee was only partially correct. Not only is there a high buy-in, the ante is much, much higher.

Noble Exchange = CCP Elitism.

It is starting to make sense: The allowed proliferation of Macro miners, the big alliances with monstrous supercap fleets, the oddball nerfs and now super-Beverly Hills-only online store….EVE’s sandbox isn’t. It is a rich man’s playground. It isn’t what one person can do to affect the outcome. The outcome is given, depending on wallet size.

I didn’t even look at the Noble Store (honestly, I tried bumping around in my Quarters to find it, but decided to try to get in on a Curse kill….only missing it to shoot a cyno ship). However, methinks I don’t even need to. If a monocle costs $70…what in the Universe would a paint job for a Megathron cost????

Then again, it never really interested me in the first place. And I am not in rage-quit mode over it at all….just realizing what side my bread is buttered on.

I think I am gonna go shoot up shit tonight. And log out in space.

-Ze

Now, I have read over the Patch notes. No surprises there except for the unscannable ship.

Yes, the verbiage is “unscannable“. Does that mean via directional scanner or combat probes? I really wish we stayed with a lexicon that is consistent. I went apeshit over my misunderstanding of the 64 AU scanner, all because of this inability to tell what is what.

If it IS about combat probing, I am assuming that now it is possible to get 100% hits on ships (there is math involved based on skills and stuff, but we’re not going to discuss that). I don’t like that idea, but it isn’t a game breaker. Just another NNR – Nerf for No Reason.

I am also not too concerned about the Aurum and ships store/micro-transaction concept. At least not in the concern pilots have about breaking the sandbox. It is a money grab for CCP, nothing more. And as long as it is for vanity shit, I don’t care.

I don’t understand, though, why anyone would want to trade in a PLEX for 2500 Aurum. Yuhp, that’s the exchange rate: 330,000,000 ISK for 2500 AUR. Of course, you can’t go in for 1/4 PLEX or 1/5 PLEX, only whole PLEXs. Hmmmmmmmm. 330 million ISK buys a lot of T-1 ships. It buys nicely fitted T-2 ships. It buys a lot of fun. Or…it can buy some new clothes for walking around in stations.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Methinks CCP does not understand it’s player base at all.

CCP has been singing praises of their New Player Experience. Well, I guess new players won’t be able to experience the in station marketplace. You think a new player would spend their first 330 million on vanity items? Or would they spend it on the fitted Hulk they need to make Iskies?

So, it’s either the rich man’s or EVE vet’s playground….just like Supercaps and such are. I know that I cannot afford to keep myself in ships AND buy shit in Aurum. It doesn’t make sense.

EVE has always had the “entry level” items players can get. Meta 0 mods cost 20 k ISK. Want something better? Named? 2 mil ISK. Tech II? 20 Mil. Faction? 200 mil. There was always a stepping stone you could use. Every player could afford a gun, just that it may not be as shiny as the next guy’s. With AUR and the vanity items, buy-in is at 330 mil for starters.

Funk dat.

It is obvious to me that CCP believes everyone flies in mega corps and everyone has a bank account of a few billion. They must. Or the PLEX hurdle wouldn’t exist.

Fly….but standby for bugs.

-Ze

We held our June frigate mêlée this past weekend. I came in third and won some nice ISK and a sweet Nemesis. I can fly the Nemesis, too, which makes the awards that much sweeter. So far in these little T-1 brawls, I have come in last, 1st, 4th, and now 3rd. Not too shabby! I flew a MWD/dampening Maulus with a small shield extender, 2x150mm autocannon, and 2 Hobgoby Is. Strictly a kite setup with drones to do the dirty work and the damp to keep the missile boats at bay. I really used the damp, though, to annoy my Chief of Operations. Fun!

Afterwards the crew stayed in Teamspeak as we watched the Alliance Tournament IX finals.

One word: Boring.

The Alliance tourney is really meant to entertain us poor folk. However, instead of giving us a true-to-life-who-knows-what-will-happen-next-OMWTFBBQ-is-that type excitement, we got was was on par with a bad reality TV show. The whole tourney was full of “Hey, Outbreak and Hydra Reloaded hid in the dark caves of SISI wormhole space being best buds and yanking each other off.” They engineered this and that and the other thing so they could be in opposite brackets…blah…blah…blah. Of course they’d meet in the end. And of course they did something gayer than the Conga line in the Circle-of-Two v Wild Boars match-up (which was only funny for the 1st minute…then tedious).

Like any fail reality show, you can tell the whole thing was scripted. And done very, very poorly.

I don’t want to accuse CCP of orchestrating something, but really you can only write shit like this up, and only when you’re drunk on piss-warm beer. Really?

The Alliance commentators and such didn’t even really focus on what Outbreak and HL were doing during the match. They focused more on what color t-shirt you can buy for your clone instead of spending plex on something like, oh, internet spaceships in a game of….internet spaceships.  And the feedback I am getting from the majority of the EVE community is “Well, that’s EVE for ya”.

What, being more fake than Pro Wrestling is EVE? EVE would be shooting. EVE would be strategy. EVE would be spying. EVE would be payoffs. EVE would be bribes. EVE would be betrayal.

The only people that were betrayed in that tourney was us: the poor viewer who will never get a chance to be on such a stage. I’ll probably never fly a Machariel. I will only see Vindicators if they’re stupid enough to stumble in a gate camp. And I hope I’ll never be on the receiving end of a Bhaalgorn. I have to fight the big fights in the shiny ships vicariously…through the tourney participants.

I don’t want thrown fights just because they’re best buds or that the Alliance leader is the brother of another Alliance’s director’s cousin’s niece’s dog’s groomer’s postman’s proctologist’s incestual sister. Especially not in the finals. It was a big “FUCK YOU” from CCP, HL and Outbreak. Well, fuck them, too.

So, I doubt I’ll be watching Tourney X, if I am in game at all. No, not planning a rage-quit. I am just being honest. If Star Wars The Old Republic is gonna be as awesome as it is supposed to be, people will leave EVE in droves. And I may be one of them.

And that’s why Incarna exists. CCP made the decision long ago (I mean, you can’t develop major content overnight….although it does SEEM that way as buggy as some shit is) to have the pilots walk around. We can’t manually pilot spaceships like Microsoft Flight Sim, so something had to be added to give it an option of some FPS functionality and feel. SWTOR  will have that. And CCP wants to keep those players.

Will it add players? No, not really, IMHO. Like Brussel sprouts, EVE has a reputation. Same with WoW and the other MMOs. Friends and co-workers drive who plays what, by water cooler conversations of “OMFG you have GOT to play Angry Birds” types which helps drive interest. Do you think those EVE spams all over the web really drag people in?

I have visited Incarna already on SISI, but to be fair, I will hold performance judgment until the release is out. It just sucked on SISI. Even my twin 8800 Ultras in SLI (yeah, I know, old system, but each one has 768 MB of DDR3 memory and a theoretical shader processing rate of something like 576 Gigaflops) were slowed, which is quite a feat for an avatar that just walks around stupidly in basically a single room.

You’ll get to see soon what Captain’s Quarters is: A gimmick. It was interesting for something like 1 minute. I logged each character in. I marvelled at how good my female chars looked and how awkward my male ones were (with the exception of Hardee, who is supposed to be a bit goofy) . I walked around…stupidly. You can’t go 1st person view, which is dumb. You have to look at your character’s backside to get him anywhere. Dumb.

I cannot imagine “fighting” person to person using the same controls we have to out in space. It’s like trying to do anything in Minecraft in 3rd person. It is just too counter-intuitive and, well, just plain awkward.

The turrets are ok in space. The sounds are, well, different. The blasters are full of fail: they don’t even look like a gun anymore. And they sound like a *whoosh*, and not a *clank*. I want my metal hammer on pigiron sound. I don’t want a whoosh. Shit, mining lasers sound better.

Then again, that seems to be part of CCP’s modus operandi: Dick with what is working perfectly fine, and ignore what’s truly broken. Oh, and add a whole bunch of new features with new problems you’ll happily ignore while making a new disaster in the PS3 world…..

Ok, I’m ranting again.

CCP has been bitch-slapped by the players a couple of times recently. They even admitted it almost as bluntly during the interview sessions in the AT IX webcasts. So, CCP does listen sometimes, especially on embarrassing fuckups. Oh, do we even have a CSM?

So, we’ll see. I am 14 days away from Gallente Cruiser 5, thus I am set for the long term training queue. Kino is training something-or-other. I think he’s working on Oneiros support skills, but I don’t remember exactly what. After this, it’s Battleships so he can go mission and make some dough. Hardee is in semi-retirement for the time being.

Fly like there’s no…oh, wait, Incarna’s here………

-Ze