Mystic Worlds

EVE Online: CCP Support Rocks!

A happy ending to my "High Cost of Mistakes" post.   The Support team reviewed the situation and today I received this email in game...

2008.01.30 05:31
Dear <removed>,

A salvage operation recently recovered your "Catalyst" class ship from a debris field in "Luminaire".  You should be able to retrieve your ship at "Algogille XIII - Federation Navy Testing Facilities".  The salvage team could not find any items that were ejected from your ship prior to its apparent destruction so if you were not able to retrieve the cargo canisters there is sadly nothing we can do.  Law requires us to notify your friendly insurance company and they have deducted any financial payout from your account.

Sincerely,
Your friendly neighbourhood CONCORD police squad.

Sweet deal.  Now I have a ship that I can use for PVP focused activity while I'm learning the ropes.

VirginWorlds Podcast Hits 100!!

The Virgin Worlds podcast reached an epic show #100.  As you'll hear, VW was the first podcast I listened to and I've been a loyal listener ever since.  I guess he was too modest to include my assertion that he is definitely, the Mack-Daddy of MMO News!

Go Brent!

If you don't listen to his podcast, take advantage of his news feed or read his blog, you're missing out on a fabulous resource.  Do yourself a favor and get over there right now!

EVE Online: The High Cost of Mistakes

The computer gaming Gods conspired against my plan to spend a couple of weeks fussing around in EQ2.  While I was actually only playing my Illusionist, one of my kids tripped over my Ethernet cable and ripped the sucker right out of the back of my tower.  The damage cracked the shared casing it was housed in requiring a trip to good ole Best Buy, where I had to leave my baby as they didn’t have a replacement but would order it.  Sans tower, left me with only my laptop and I had NO intention of downloading and patching the EQ2 client on that puppy.  Given that the EVE Online (EO) client download and patch is fast and painless, I returned to the dark crevices of deep space.

When last I left EO, I was without a corporation.  Since that time I’ve received numerous suggestions regarding corporations that might suit me better.  I followed a huge group of track-back links to a forum that was discussing my EO posts and ran into some very helpful players.  Several of them were gracious enough to send me private messages once I joined their forum, to point me in the direction of good beginner corporations, PVP corporations and even, serious role playing corps and channels.  If you’re not already familiar with the Scrapheap forum, go check it out.

EQ2: Choosing a Second Profession

Removing leveling from the equation of character progression means that I’m free to only do whatever it is I really enjoy in this game.  For me, that comes down to exploration and crafting.  I’d also like to decorate my two-room apartment into something special.  The leveling will come however and whenever.

Having elected not to quest anymore than I absolutely want to, means that my gear and weapons will fall behind, unless I make a conscious effort to obtain upgrades on my own.  If I don’t create alts do craft my armor and weapons it’s likely to be a very expensive proposition.  And those costs will be on top of purchasing spell upgrades as the profession I selected for this character was provisioner.  I made that choice because I love cooking – both in game and in real life.  I figured if I’m going to spend time crafting, it should be something that I enjoy.  However, as I now consider the possible costs of keeping my character appropriately equipped for soloing, I’m wondering if I must, for the first time ever, roll a crafting only character in a game?

Vanguard, is it a Knockoff?

The word knockoff came to mind when I was thinking of how to explain to anyone who might not understand why I personally consider Vanguard, a bad game.  My opinion isn't based on whether or not the game has any value.  I'm sure there is value there and the people who've elected to play the game are enjoying it.  No, that has nothing to do with my issue. 

My problem with Vanguard is that it didn't deliver to the expectations set by Sigil in promoting the game or its officers when speaking of the game.  What I received for my pre-order dollars and subscription fee was more like an MMO knockoff versus a present day Class A title.  And no, I'm not going to compare Vanguard's quality at release to what EQ1, EQ2 or AC1 may have released as years ago and what we accepted as reasonable back then.  This is NOW not then.  I didn't pick this game up out of the $9.99 bin at Best Buy where I expect lesser quality, "get what you get" gaming experience.  If I had, we wouldn't be having this conversation. ::Smile::

A Return to EverQuest 2

After three straight weeks of EVE Online (EO), I need a bit of a break.  I will continue logging into to do skill training but that’s about it.  My next adventure in EO will be to find a new corporation and decide on a profession.  I keep thinking about Science and Industry but that probably requires more time than I'm willing to commit. I've made good money just from ratting so perhaps I'll just stick to that for money.  Whatever I decide, for the moment I need a break from deep space.  I needs me some magic and fantasy lovin'.

I thought about going back to WOW for a bit to do some more PVP.  My Feral Druid is in three pieces of Season 1 Arena gear but needs a weapon upgrade.  I could work on getting enough gold to purchase the epic flying mount skill so that I can start the quest for the Druid Epic Flight Form.  As it turns out, neither of those were options.  My son, completely tired of his WOW toons and my other ones, hijacked my Druid.  What to do, what to do?

I thought about returning to The Sims 2 and my fantasy themed neighborhood and families.  I’d spent a lot of time decorating the entire area medieval.  I’d subscribed to custom content websites to get everything I needed from furniture, to clothing, to accessories and hairstyles.  Surely, I should make sure I get my money’s worth by playing it again.  But having played MMOs for many years now, I get bored and lonely playing alone.  As I was thinking about how cute my elf family looked in TS2 it occurred to me that if that slow paced fantasy experience was suitable for now, why not just go back to EQ2?  Isn’t that a nice in between?  Quiet slow paced but with other people??

The EVE Online Goodies I Promised

I apologize for the wait.  Here are some resources and tips to help you get going in EVE Online (EO).

New Player Guides
I found some great guides for new players.  I focused on understanding the basics of the overall game, combat, ship selection, professions and a bit of back-story.  With the exception of the last two guides which are only needed when you’re ready to think about a profession, I consider these guides a must read.  All of these guides hail from All About EVE Online:

• Getting Started
• Basic Combat
• Basic Fighting
• Mission and Agent Types
• Science and Industry
• Manufacturing

Shut Up, She's Talking!

Darren from The Common Sense Gamer was kind enough to invite me as a guest on this week's podcast of "Shut Up. We're Talking.".  Shut Up is part of the VirginWorlds Podcast Collective, a conglomerate of some of the best MMORPG-related podcasts.

Check out show #18 here.

EVE Online Trial Part III: The Conclusion Part 2 of 2

If you haven’t, you’ll want to start by reading Conclusion Part 1 of 2…

Around 3AM EST I’m extremely tired.  That giddy level of fatigue sets in where absolutely everything is hysterical to me. ::Crazy quirk of mine::  Among the people left online, only three of us appear to have our thinking caps on – albeit mine is slowly slipping sideways.  We are an international corporation so people are still logging in from different time zones.  We keep reminding people that we are at war and these folks mean business.  Most of the fleet is gone and people should just sit tight which means don’t fly anything you aren’t willing to lose.

People are either hard of reading, stubborn or stupider than shit. Many players just insisted on trying to go out and fly around the area which invariably ended up with their ship being blown up.  And for whatever reasons, perhaps this is normal behavior in a war but they were also pod-killing to boot.  Lots of complaints in chat and not a single officer online.  A couple of people who had insisted on trying to run a mission get trapped somewhere.  I couldn’t really understand how they were trapped but not attacked.  I kept asking but the responses where just whines about what’s the point of being in a corporation if when you’re in trouble no one comes to help.

EVE Online Trial Part III: The Conclusion Part 1 of 2

Being new to EVE Online (EO), I assumed that war and PVP were synonymous.   You attack another player or target a group of players, and you’re at “war” with them.  As the final days of my trail would teach me, that is not the case.  Not having had time to research the intricacies of what is or isn’t a “war declaration” in EO.  I can only relate what transpired with the corporation that I was a member of and what they said was going on...

I was living rather high after my narrow escape during the last “all hands” call for PVP reinforcements.  Corporation chat remained lively and entertaining.  I was executing a training plan to get into the Vexor as requested by our combat leaders.  I did a lot of mission running, something that most of the other new players didn’t seem to be interested in doing much of, even though it was netting me some phat loots by salvaging all the rat ships.  In a nutshell, life was pretty damn good.