Lab Utopia

To PC or Not PC, That is the Question.

2011-08-15T10:28:00.001+02:00

Well, not so much of a question really. Around the start of June I basically stopped gaming on my PC completely, family and real life commitments don't afford me enough time to continue with games that require any time dedication. Before I dropped off the radar I was still steady in EVE, Sid and Co. chugging along in their intergalactic lives (Sid is around 80mil SP now). League of Legends occupied most of the rest of my gaming time and I also fiddled around a bit in the revamped APB. Dropped that completely though after their decision on how to handle old accounts. WoW had also gone onto the back burner, mainly due to running out of content/progression that was non-raid, and also my mates stopping playing as well.

Since then though, I have picked up a new Xbox 360 (my old one went RROD a few years back) and a whopping 17 (!!!!!) new games. So yea, I've been steadily plowing through those, as well as re-visiting some of my old games, when time allows. I've managed to get both Assassin's Creed 1 & 2 to 100% (including max GS from them) and am only missing the MP Achievements from Brotherhood. There's loads of games that I haven't even put in the Xbox yet and looking forward to. I'm one of those people that like to focus solidly on a game until I've done everything, it can be a bit infuriating, especially when there's titles sitting there I'd love to jump into, but feel that I need to finish off the game I'm currently on.

Speaking of which, right now I'm working through Fable 2 (Fable 3 might be next), which might contradict my previos statement a little, but I've found that playing MP on Live with all randoms is boring as hell and infuriating. Need more friends on there to group up with really, bleh!

As said, PC gaming has basically been left behind by me now, though with the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic that may swiftly change. I've always loved Bioware games and also the Star Wars universe, especially in this time setting. The prospect of running around with a lightsaber in a world and story designed and written by Bioware is too good an opportunity to pass up I think. We shall see.

Me, AWOL? No Sir!

2011-04-12T11:05:00.001+02:00

Though I have been absent for some time, this was mainly caused by being a wee touch too busy with the real world. Most recently I’ve been working not one, but two jobs (just like buses, you wait for ages for one and multiple come along at the same time) and of course the family.

Game wise I just haven’t had a whole lot of time. I’ve managed to keep the old skill queue’s running, Sid is now a rather awesome Dramiel pilot (though I’m probably still a bit fail…) while Cav & Kal have been ever expanding in their Science and Industry roles. Really want to find some good time to get a proper dabble in at Planetary stuffs, but I guess that can continue to wait a bit. Oh, and the re-customisation was really nice, not too sure about Sid and Cav, but Kal certainly looks great, might have to go back at the other two soonish.

Also stuck my hand into WoW a little bit, more as it allowed me to just pick up something for a short time and have a little fun with no worries about what actually happened than anything else. Other than that, I continued with a bit of awesomeness in League of Legends on the mighty Mordekaiser, as well as getting into the APB:Reloaded CB and being thoroughly disappointed with the lag. Quite looking forward to finally getting on the EU servers there as hopefully that will allow me to actually perform properly.

In the near future I’m planning to upgrade my PC a little bit, new Mobo, CPU and RAM are in order, I can live with the GFX card I have though that may need a bump up at some point too. But mainly my CPU is lagging behind at the moment. That’s certainly something I want to take care of before Star Wars: The Old Republic comes along (really wish I could get into the Beta for that), I want those light sabers to look spangly!

Well, I’ll keep this short and sweet as I’ve got things to do, but hopefully I can find time to actually keep the blog up to date from now on, instead of squashing 4 months into a few paragraphs….

Back in Space

2010-11-13T19:06:00.001+01:00

So, I've taken advantage of the rather handy offer CCP sent through to me, 5 days free activation for 2 of my accounts, though the third will require me paying something I guess, not sure when I'll be able to take care of that though really.

Annoyingly enough, it would appear that the account with most of my ISK on it is the one that hasn't received a free activation email though! Damn and blast! Both Sid and Cavindal are active though, so I can get some mining on as well as a bit of pewpew. Well, actually the first thing Sid needs to take care of is getting the Carrier back up to Empire from Null as apparently the Alliance is disbanding and we're leaving that space by the end of the month. I've been told that other plans are in the works though, so there should still be more than enough to do that is of interest (but when isn't there in EVE?).

I've also managed to procure a copy of Call of Duty Black Ops, though (typically) I'm one of those folks that is being plagued by a host of problems from "Connection Errors" to the game freezing for a few seconds whilst in menus or a match itself. That is of course when I actually manage to get it to connect to a server as most of the time it just doesn't let me. Not impressed in the slightest and I simply cannot believe that Treyarch and Activision have not only released it with such a major issue, but haven't already released a fix for it.

I've tried a fair few that I've seen online, ranging from registry modifications, to editing a plethora of settings in the config file. So far I haven't found anything that really works or even makes a noticeable difference. If anyone can offer any pointers on that it would be immensely appreciated. I really do hope this is something that's fixed pronto, for those of us that are being affected by these issues the entire game is effectively unplayable.

Duty Calling

2010-11-11T21:49:00.004+01:00

Call of Duty Black Ops was released the other day and I simply have no chance of getting hold of it for the time being! It's a really appalling state of affairs I know, and most definitely one that needs to be rectified soon. All I hear on Vent at the moment is friends gleefully taking down people and chattering on about gameplay modes and map features that I have absolutely no clue about. Sad panda indeed.

Whilst all that's going on and waiting, I'm still amusing myself in LoL with the mighty Master Yi. It's getting quite amusing as I approach the higher tiers of play, more and more people are dismissing Yi and completely underestimating the damage he can churn out consistently. In one match just this morning I was 4/0/0 within 5 minutes simply due to the opponents not expecting the high damage that his passive can apply with Wuju Style active + a quickly activated Alpha Strike. It's niiiiice.

My account is only at the heady heights of Sorcerer level 17, taking me forever to get higher simply due to time factors. I'll have to sort out posting something on here about my experiences with Master Yi and the game in general at some point, by that something I'm hoping it will be a legible guide from a (relatively) new player perspective.

The EVE Account reactivation will hopefully be happening soon, I just literally received an email allowing me to activate a couple of my accounts for free for 5 days. As soon as this new apartment is more settled I'll be taking advantage of that and then chucking a PLEX on them with the funds I have available. It should be enough unless my memory is completely failing in my dotage. Quite looking forward to hopping back in my Legion and Archon!

PEWPEW!

Return of the Missing Llama

2010-10-31T19:18:00.001+01:00

Long (loooooong) time no post. As stated in my previous post I am no dead, however real-life issues have being doing their utmost to keep me away from the worlds of gaming and that which is online in general.

This most certainly includes the most recent of developments, which is moving apartment. My wife and I have found a rather lovely place in the same district in which we currently live, but ever so slightly cheaper and (we hope) considerably cheaper on the energy front. We shall see. However we're in the middle of moving now and so that will knock me out of action for that little bit longer I imagine.

Gaming wise, not a whole lot has been going on, other than I have recently added the rather fabtastic League of Legends to my library, it's really good fun, strategic and best of all free to play! I never really got into DoTa or games of this ilk, however kicking around in LoL as Master Yi is something I find more than slightly enjoyable, and a nice way to pass a good 30 minutes or so. I've even taken the step of signing up to the ESL and the LoL 1on1 League, should be joining the 2on2 League soon as well, though I'm waiting until after the move to actually arrange any matches and so on.

I am sadly a bit fail at any using any Champion other than Yi, which is something I'm going to rectify in the near future by unlocking and practicing with others a bit more. A bit less Wuju for me!

Once the move is complete I will be re-activating my EVE accounts (as they will of course pay for themselves with PLEX's) but this and other free to play titles have been sating my gaming needs most recently.

Anyways, I just wanted to make a very short post to indicate that I'm not really A.W.O.L., just....taking care of business.

See you in space soon!

Still Here

2010-06-01T17:04:00.001+02:00

Yers, I’m not dead (yet). Just been looking around at other games and having some conversations that are making me reconsider my previous stance. It’s been pointed out to me, that when I was a GM for WoW, would I have been able to issue any form of reimbursement without sufficient evidence that proved the game/server was at fault? The answer was quite definitely a no, but that still didn’t change the fact that I was shafted by the game and it is something I really can’t tolerate.

So what has changed, well, some conversations (including one with my dear old grandfather – though that wasn’t about the game) made me realise that I’d be giving up something, a hobby of mine, that I really enjoy because of my pride effectively. I’ve had nasty losses and set backs before, and I’ve recovered from those, I’ve also technically recovered from this one with very little work as I now have everything I had before (including the Freighter on my alt) plus a few extra toys too. Also, I can’t seem to find anything that offers me as much of what I want as EVE does…curses!

So yea, I’m using ISK at the moment to keep the accounts active, maybe I do drop completely, but for the time being at least I think I’ll retract my previous quittage and see if I can’t get over this properly and have some more good (and memorable) times in EVE.

On another note I did have a minute spare today which Kirith helped to use up:

80 words

Typing Test

Good Fight, Good Night!

2010-05-07T23:47:00.001+02:00

Well, after rather extensive discussions, and plain old arguments with a GM and Senior GM I’ve been informed that “no fault can be verified by the logs” and thus I have to just suck it up.

Screw that. As I said before, if it came to this then I would cancel the accounts and give up the game as there is no way I could continue to play with such a bitter taste left in my mouth. I’ve already cancelled all 3 accounts, though there is about 30 days time left on each, so I’ll probably use that to do stupid things like blow up my Carrier with as much “ISK” inside it as possible. I’ll be sure to record the event (will take me a while to get it sorted) and slap it up for the giggle.

What to do after EVE though? I could slip back into WoW again, having worked for them previously my account is still exempt from subscription payments so that’s a bonus. I know most of the guys I played with before are still there so that would be cool a bunch to kick about with. Though I’m not sure I’d enjoy the game itself though.

There’s APB, though I’m really dubious about their subscription plans…fun game and the customisation is absolutely awesome, definitely looking forward to this Sunday’s playtest (if I can get on!),

And of course there’s SW:TOR coming up at some point, will have to keep my eyes on that I reckon. But first things first, I’m going to pay off a couple of debts (in EVE) and then blow up some shinies!

Anyone got any other recommendations for MMO’s that are either out or in the works?

The CONCORD Suicide Prevention Plan

2010-05-01T15:41:00.001+02:00

Suicide ganking, is it a problem that needs fixing? Or an aspect of EVE that should remain in-game? Considering my recent first-hand experience of it (couple with the client being an utter turd at the time) I definitely want to chuck out my 2 pennies on this subject.

We clearly have at least 3 trains of thought on it, those dead against it who would like to see it prevented, those that thrive on it and want it to remain and those that aren’t really affected by it and so don’t give it much more thought than “Whoa, there’s a lot of CONCORD here right now, what happened?”. I definitely fell into the first group prior to my own experience of it and that view has only been reinforced since, so in this post I’m going to offer up what I think could be done to prevent it. If you are pro-SG, then please feel free to leave a comment on why you think it should remain in EVE (or write your own post and leave a link here).

First up my reasons for being against it are quite simple. As we all know, EVE is effectively divided into three areas, High-Sec, Low-Sec and Null-Sec. Clearly each of these represents a differing level of safety and security, as well as (I think) an indication of willingness to participate in PvP.

Null-Sec, the place where the only protection you have is what you’ve brought with you, and who you get to call friend. Effectively completely lawless it is space that is player run and as such is a full on, PvP at any time area, as well as the typical ground for large scale fleet battles. Dangerous, but very rewarding.

Low-Sec, this separates Null from High, offering minimal security in the form of gate guns, it is still developed enough that most systems contain at least one station. Players entering Low-Sec are making themselves available for some intense PvP, but with the benefit of being able to dock up at pretty much any time. Still a very dangerous area to travel (or live!) in, most say the rewards do not equal the risks.

And then there’s High-Sec, being the most secure it offers the best protection with the presence of CONCORD ships patrolling on gates, as well as coming to the aid of vessels under attack unlawfully. The majority of systems here are developed to a level that you can typically find multiple stations to park up in or even call home and PvP is effectively consensual, with war declarations being required in order to avoid CONCORDs wrath, which at least notifies players that they should be wary if they venture out amongst the stars.

And there lies my main reason for being against it, High-Sec is supposed to be “safe”, or at least where you know when threats may be nearby and that undocking would be a bit of a bad idea. Here a few things that I think could be implemented to prevent suicide ganking, or at the least aid those should they become a victim of it:

Implement cargo insurance, this could be done in the form of taking out an insurance policy once your ships cargo is loaded up (any changes void the policy or at least update it), to insuring individual items in a similar manner to that of ship insurance (with a considerably shorted duration of course). Alternatively it could be implemented into the ship insurance itself as an additional option based upon the capacity (and type) of the ship.
Allow us to purchase “membership” to some CONCORD assistance group or something (think roadside assistance in real world). Offering different services depending on the level you subscribe to, from faster response times to them actually repairing your vessel, or even having them take the contents of your wreck and depositing them in the nearest station for you should the worst come to pass.
Remove the profit from it by locking the wreck to the victim for a reasonable duration of time, preventing anyone else from accessing it. Of course, this could lead to “wreck camping”.
Give the “kill right” to the victims entire Corp (or even fleet) and not just the victim, most of the industrial characters that are taken out in this way are completely unable to enact any sort of vengeance anyway and the gankers know it.

Of course there are loads of other methods that could be implemented to make suicide ganking less desirable, to remove it completely or simply just to lower the massively negative effect it has on the victim, these are just a few that occurred to me whilst typing this up.

I also think that if this were prevented we would see more people moving out to, and living in, Low-Sec space. This would obviously have many knock-on effects, the first being that certain over-populated High-Sec hubs would see a drop in permanent residents. Also at the moment not many traders run the risk of supplying Low-Sec, but with even more people living out there the rewards would be increased further, tempting traders to run those routes. This would also then provide these naughty pirates with more juicy targets.

Bit of a wall of text there, sorry about that, and also a bit late posting this as my overall schedule has been royally shafted this week. Normal service resumes next week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday).

Moar Shinies

2010-04-29T02:42:00.001+02:00

I was supposed to stick this up yesterday, but with the wife and kids returning from Romania things were more than a bit hectic so I didn’t really get a chance. Anyway, after the rather abysmal events last week, I’ve gone and got myself a couple more shiny things whilst waiting on a response from a Senior GM. Not only to cheer myself up a little, but also for “practical” purposes.

First up I bought a couple of things for my Legion, namely a Federation Navy Stasis Webifier and also Ogdin’s Eye Coordination Enhancer (6% bonus to tracking speed). The latter is not strictly for the Legion, and will help pretty much whatever ship I happen to be piloting when using that clone, but that is the main thing it was purchased for. This should allow me to take care of any frigates that come in too close and web/scram me when I’m ratting and plexing, it’s quite annoying that prior to this I couldn’t do anything about them and had to wait on someone to come save me from the buggers.

I also nabbed myself a little Dramiel as I love flying small fast ships and this sucker looks awesome. Been spending quite a lot of time recently piloting my Wolf and enjoying it thoroughly, and although the DPS is somewhat lower (about a 25% reduction) the Dramiel gives me considerably more choice in which fights I take part in, as well as being insanely fast (and therefore fun) for me to fly.

Sadly I’m missing a few key skills at their required levels to do this fit properly (Shield Upgrades 5 will bring the powergrid usage down and I need Astronautics Rigging 4 for the Tech II Rig), so although it’s there in the hangar, it will remain there until that’s taken care of (about 4 days from now). Funnily enough though, I did take it out for a little spin and manage to bring down a Hulk war target within 30 minutes of owning it whilst collecting the MWD, nabbed his pod too. And yes, the Gistii A-Type is quite possibly a bit over the top when a B-Type would do the job, but the fit simply cannot be made cap stable and that bumps it up quite considerably.

Also purchased, this time for Kal, was an Orca. Yes yes, after that Legion business I am broke, having to sell off the Freighter and everything, but I borrowed a little from a mate in order to purchase this and bump up my mining operations with the alts a bit. It also allows me to haul a load of the ore that I had stacking up (and then the minerals) in quite a lot less time than my Iteron V would allow. Kal will return to trading soon (the money is too good to pass up) but for now him and Cav doing some nice, relaxed mining is well in order.

So there we have it, this week is looking a bit more positive, now I just need a good response from whichever Senior GM deals with me to at least get that loss of Kals restored, then I’ll be a happy bunny again.

A Proper GM Shafting

2010-04-26T23:09:00.001+02:00

That’s what I appear to be getting right now. For both petitions submitted (as the events took place on different characters) I’m being refused any sort of reimbursement. Of course CCP are unable to verify that any error occurred in either case and so their view is that it’s tough luck and I just have to suck it up.

I am not impressed in the slightest to say the least. Were I in a restaurant and the waiter dropped my food I’m pretty damn sure that I would not be paying for the replacement, but that is exactly what I’m being expected to do here. I know what many will say, if CCP reimburse cases that cannot be verified then that means literally every single case would be reimbursed and the system would be taken advantage of.

I can very much see that myself, and quite honestly I’m not sure how I can prove my client was unresponsive other than with some in depth looking at my clients calls to the server during the time of the incident. Of course, that’s assuming it was a problem actually with my client and not the communication between client and server, all I know is that my PC was running fine as was the other client running on it.

Regardless of this, I’ve requested that the petition be escalated to a Senior GM. I would be willing to accept one loss in a day to a game error, but I outright refuse to accept two. Should this not be resolved satisfactorily then I don’t really see any other choice than to quit the game. I certainly do not agree with paying to be shafted by the game itself and the support, what happens because of the players is something else, but this is (for me) intolerable.

Especially as the day after these events (Saturday) the two weeks of remaining subscription time on my main account literally went missing. I’d checked on my subscription status in the morning and so was positive on how much time remained, but for some reason not long after down time I received the message that the account was suspended due to their being no subscription time remaining. Checking the website showed “0d 0h 0m” and I was understandably very angry about this.

Resolving that issue basically took the entire day, and the support could not offer me any explanation as to what had happened. Clearly there was something seriously up with something that day, and yet the support doubt that I had major issues with the client the night before.

I have bought yet another Legion though, yes #3 at this moment has been bought, fitted, and is currently being employed to inflict some pain down in 0.0 on those nasty nasty NPC pirates. Had to sell (temporarily at least) the my alts Freighter, but I really wanted to be flying one of these. Total outlay at the moment for this, around 2.5bil, which will hopefully be lowered by some reimbursement….I can only pray..

Taken To The Cleaners

2010-04-23T13:38:00.001+02:00

Yesterday was quite possibly the worst day I have ever had in EVE. In-fact, no, it was definitely the worst day I’ve had in EVE when I think about it. The short version is, I lost not 1, but 2 Legions (total fit around 700mil) due to game glitches.

Early in the morning I moved my first Legion down to my Carrier ready to jump to our 0.0 space. This all went without a hitch and I was more than happy with the prospect of getting stuck into some action down there, both PvE and the possibility of roams. After we arrived myself and a alliance mate who was the proud owner of a new Tengu started hitting the plexes to see what our ships could do. Started small and built our way up, quite honestly we had no problems at all, the tanks on these ships are phenomenal and the dps is more than respectable.

Then over Vent comes the report that 2 neutrals have entered system, checking my local channel I see bugger all which was more than a bit worrying, but try warping to our POS anyway. Next thing I know there’s a neutral Interceptor scramming me, I do what anyone would and try locking him up to attempt to get out of it. Of course not being fit for PvP meant that he was far too quick and I couldn’t get a hit on him, and shortly later 9 more neutrals warp in and make quick work of my new toy. fortunately I did get my pod out of danger.

I think it’s obvious that there was some lag, or server sync issue with my client, and I’m more than a bit miffed at losing the ship due to something out of my control, due to that I’ve submitted a petition and seriously pray that CCP will help me out with this. I get more than a few sync issues when travelling around, jumping through gates and nothing loading even though I’m still connected etc, so my fingers are definitely crossed.

But how did I manage to lose a second Legion you ask? Well, thanks to the joys of suicide ganking and game freezes is the short answer. The longer version is that I bought the new ship and systems up in Jita, loaded it up into a hauler (on my alt) and undocked. The client froze with my Iteron looking rather forlorn as it came out onto the undock ramp, and when it unfroze I was staring at my pod with the joyful sound you get when shields/armour/hull are low.

The guy who killed me did convo me afterwards, I think he was after some sort of reaction, and said that he went for me simply because he saw that I was stuck/taking forever to warp. This is definitely something that should not have happened, the Itty did have 3 Tech 2 Inertia Stabilizers included in its fit and with an instant warp from undock I should have been gone before he could lock. Another petition submitted and more fingers are crossed.

So yea, all in all I’m more than a bit sad with this course of events, I’ve been working quite hard to earn this ISK, and it’s gone up in smoke due to events out of my control. I’m now sitting on not a lot of capital (less than 100mil right now), as I tapped into my trading funds in order to buy the second Legion, and will now have to rebuild that again.

I’m also more than slightly annoyed with the whole suicide ganking system, and although many will cry out that “it’s part of the game”, I say, why the hell is it part of the game? High-Sec should be “safe” from players, and require war declarations or other methods of consent for combat. This isn’t Low-Sec or null space, and I personally see suicide ganking as bordering on an exploit. Change it so that your wreck is locked to you, really locked, if you are killed in High-Sec unless by a valid war target, in which case they of course should have access to your wreck. I’ve never been someone who’s overly bothered by losses, and I am normally very cautious in what I’m doing, but when things are taken out of your hands and it’s due to connection/client issues it feels like a bit of a kick to the head.

Closing statement: Bugger…..

The Path to Insanity

2010-04-22T09:01:00.002+02:00

Yesterday I put together a fit for my Legion (focused purely on PvE) that is somewhat OTT, some might even say completely and utterly bonkers:

And well, I guess that it is a bit really, with a price tag of a little over 20bil, even though I can’t decide what I should use those 2 remaining mid-slots for, you’d have to be off your rocker just a little to even think about it. But I do. My response to being asked why? Everyone needs a target, a goal to reach, something for them to strive for. Some people aim for trading greatness and market domination, others want to be able to craft or even invent things more than any other. Some want to be in control of entire regions within New Eden, and then of course some want specific ships. Mine might be a bit extreme for a single ship fit, but high goals are better than none at all. For the time being though I shall be kicking around in this (rather inferior) version, while I’m earning the ISK and picking up those Officer mods one by one.

Plans of Mice and Men

2010-04-20T08:17:00.001+02:00

Since starting to use the Trade Analysis Tool my wallet has been growing rather impressively. Over the course of 7 days, doing no more than 2 hours per day (and some days nothing at all) I cleared over 1.5bil profit. Bear in mind that of those 2 hours, at least half of it is transporting the goods about which is basically a semi-afk job of win anyway. The in-depth post on the tool is coming, I swear!

Anyway, due to this performance I'm starting to consider other options for things to do in EVE. Quite a lot perks my interest so really it's trying to settle on something and do it properly, rather than make a half-assed attempt at too many things. Of course, then there's plenty of things that I really should do but am finding it hard to get the motivation for (hi2u R&D agents...).

One of the things that's really perked my interest of late, and this is most likely thanks to many of the blogs that I read, is living in WH space. To get on this track I've been looking at POS setups and also working out what other gear (read: ships) I should take in there with me. I think I'll just do some WH raiding first though before I throw myself into it completely. Especially as I'd like to fulfil another "desire" first.

And that desire is, quite simply, buying myself a Legion, fitting it out as ridiculously as is possible, and getting myself a full set of Slave implants and other juicy bits for when I'm tootling around in it. Obviously it's painting a rather massive target on my head, but I want something insanely shiny to pootle about in and blow stuff up with. Plus with making the money via trading, basically not very exciting, that will let me break it up with something more enjoyable.

I know that I posted fairly recently about my distaste for them, however I've gone over a few fits (some from people in my Alliance, thanks guys) which effectively completely reversed that, and now I'm lusting for one quite strongly. The look of them has seriously grown on me as well, so yers, givegivegive.

Other things that I'm looking at doing are setting up a little POS in Empire for BP research & copying. Not to mention my desire to actually get involved in the whole manufacturing side of the business as well. Of course, first of all I really need to get the skills sorted in order to do the job competently, and secondly (perhaps more importantly) I need to study the value of BPO's and BPC's to know what I'm dealing with! Any advice or pointers on this (or the manufacturing) front would be appreciated.

Weekend Action

2010-04-19T14:37:00.002+02:00

Had a bit of fun this weekend with the current war that our alliance has going. Roaming around on Saturday didn't provide much action, but one moment of enjoyment at least. We had a small gang roaming around, most of us in battleships but we did also have a lighter Thorax kicking along too. We spent quite some time hunting for targets without much luck, it always seemed that we were one step behind them. Eventually we do locate a WT who's mining away in a belt, our Thorax dives into the system, warps to the belt and gets him pointed.

Being a nice chap he just held him there whilst the rest of us, being somewhat slower in our chunky machines, get there as well to all share in the killmail and so that we all get at least something from the evenings work. After it's confirmed that everyone has him locked up and something active to be present we get ready to obliterate the hapless ship. Just as we're about to open fire and create some more space junk out of the immobilised Retriever, the pilot ejects and buggers off.

After a quick chat we decide that we'll pocket the Retriever and so one of our guys drops his ship at a station and comes back to collect it, he sticks that in a Station and throws it up on a private contract for the original owner (quite a reasonable price as well considering it was rigged). He of course bought it back and that was that. Done deal for the day though not exactly the best performance for a few hours work really.

Sunday though proved to be much more interesting. I wasn't on for long, but there was a fleet of 7 or 8 WT's in and around Hek. I myself was sitting in Eystur in one of my Abaddons, a bit of dancing back and forth went on, but eventually they went for a Drake we sent in as bait. We were outnumbered, but far from outgunned, most of us were piloting battleships, whereas they were in cruisers and battlecruisers.

Not a lot to be said about the fight itself really, it went smoothly and I was quite pleased to get in on all 3 killmails, a Blackbird, a Hurricane and a Arbitrator. Not the most glorious of targets maybe, but after the previous nights fruitless activity (and my not so impressive killboard stats...) it was something to perk up the night.

Aside from that my trading continues, I have lined up a post about it, with much more detail and so on regarding the Trade Analysis Tool so that anyone interested can get a better idea of how it works and what to expect from it. I'll try and get that up tomorrow or Wednesday, if I can resist earning more ISK or blowing stuff up!

Thanks + A Little Apology

2010-04-16T18:02:00.001+02:00

Just a little post to say thanks to all the new readers, and also to CrazyKinux for adding me to the EVE Blogosphere the other day, which is no doubt the major source behind this surge of activity. That's not to leave out those who found their own way here though, a special thanks to you, especially if you keep returning!

I previously ran a blog many, many moons ago and have since completely fallen out of practice and fear that my writing has suffered somewhat. Any comments, criticism and advice are more than welcome, though please don't beat me too much.

I'd also like to apologise if I sometimes cause chaos with people's readers when I have to edit posts. I'm currently using MarsEdit on my MBP and to be quite honest it's pants compared to Windows Live Writer. Every post I make ends up looking completely different when I see it on the actual blog compared to what was in the preview window, I'm working on resolving this asap, any advice would be appreciated. If all else fails I guess I'll have to resort to using Windows Live Writer via Parallels or something.

Anyway, thanks again for reading, please keep doing so! and as said, if you feel something could be improved let me know!

Behind Hangar Door #1 We Have!

2010-04-15T18:31:00.002+02:00

Ok, so I am most likely the last person out there to be doing this (I hope not but ah well), over at EVEGONDA Rixx asked the following:

What do you do when naming your ships? Is it something you take seriously, naming them after ships in science fiction movies? Like Nostromo or others. Or famous science fiction writers? I've done that one myself, The Asimov, The Bradbury, etc. And why did you choose the names you choose?

My answer to this isn't a clear cut yes or no, I guess it's a "kind-of". When naming ships I basically just don't want something that sounds obviously stupid, and being quite terrible at coming up with names causes this to be a major problem for me.

The second question is what is in your hanger right now?

I won't list them all, as that will take far, far too long I think, the important ones (to me anyway) below:

Archon - 'Sleeper' - Named because I don't do a lot in it really, other than doze off waiting for Cyno's whilst transporting my ships about. Still, it is currently the pride of my collection.
Obelisk - 'The Tub' - Pretty much all my hauling vessels have 'tub' somewhere in there name, so I figured the freighter deserved to be 'The Tub'.
Manticore - 'Kosh' and 'Bosh' - I have quite a few of these kicking around, though I generally stick to two specific fits and wanted two similar names so that I could differentiate easily enough, this was the result.
Abaddon - 'Goliath' - Gankaddon really, and deserving of the name just for the insane tank and gank he's packing.
Abaddon - 'Lorgrim' - Another Abaddon, this time kitted out for those rare moments that I have the time and desire to run missions.
Hurricane - 'Blitz' - My faithful ratting ship when lasers just don't cut it.
Apocalypse - 'Kamtar' - Sniping Apoc rarely used but loved nevertheless.
Armageddon - 'Divinity' - Typical fleet RR BS, again not used too often (especially recently) but I do enjoy taking it out when the opportunity arises.
Wolf - 'Stardancer' - For those moments where I need something small with a decent punch, sometimes a bit of solo roaming in this little baby as well.
Harbinger - 'New Dawn' - Another mission boat, for when a big chunky BS just isn't needed.
Retribution - 'Last Hope' - I typically use this in a similar way to the Wold, but I have pulled it out when needing to do light missions as well.
Cheetah - 'Suterusu' - Let's face it, everyone needs a probing ship right?
Hulk - 'Mower' - What else to call a ship that plows through the belts like it's mowing the lawn?

Additional to this little lot I of course have a load of Tech I ships kicking around for when I'm feeling suicidal, as well as the usual scattering of Destroyers and the like for very specific tasks, and let's not forget a couple of ships that are currently missing from my hangars due to poor engagement choices in the past.

I will be adding some more to this soon I think, Kalrain should be dropping an Orca in there within the next two weeks, and I think I've decided that I will get Sid a Legion even though I do have reservations about it. Lastly I definitely want to pick me up an Anshar at some point, though that is some way off I think.

Do You Feel Safe?

2010-04-13T15:14:00.002+02:00

I saw a post up on Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah today concerning the announced changes by CCP to the current "Deep Safe Spots", and thought I'd throw my 2 pennies out there as well.

What we're doing
We're defining a "deep safe" for these purposes as any bookmark which is more than 10AU further from the local star than the furthest-out celestial object (planets or stargates).
You will no longer be able to create bookmarks outside this range
You will no longer be able to issue a "warp to" command to any location outside this range
You will no longer be able to open a cynosural field at any location outside this range
This should make these locations essentially unreachable, thus forcing ships within a given system to use the other measures available (docking, cloaking, warping around an awful lot) if they want to avoid being shot at.

Additionally, please note that we will be doing a "clean sweep" during Tyrannis deployment: ALL OBJECTS outside the 10AU perimeter will be removed, and by "removed" we mean "permanently deleted". Ships, cans, territorial structures - nothing will survive. If you have characters in ships outside this distance, the ship will be destroyed and your capsule will be returned to the station that your clone is set to. If you have things parked at "deep safe" spots that you'd like to keep after Tyrannis, or characters parked out there, we strongly recommend that you move them prior to May 18th.

I see this as a good thing, clearly it is an exploit, though many won't see it as such as it doesn't result in massive amounts of ISK or crazy explosions, and fixing any exploit is a good thing in my opinion. It won't prevent people from making good safe spots, but it will (or should) at least limit them to being within the expected "boundaries" of a system. By no means the change of the year, but still a thumbs up from me.

Now if only they'd fix the bug with modules being offline when you take a ship out of a Carrier/Orca etc...

Power Profits!

2010-04-12T14:50:00.002+02:00

As promised in my last post here's a little update after using the Trade Analysis Tool for the past couple of days, I'll say right now that my initial impressions have been nothing but reinforced. I've not done a massive amount of runs, however those I have done were more than slightly rewarding and I can only imagine what the profits would be like given enough time dedicated to this.

I started off fairly lightly, utilising the cache reader aspect of the tool I spent about 30 minutes clicking through a load of items on the market, varying types as I am new to this and obviously not 100% sure what is best to search out for trading. Anyway, after doing that over 4 Regions I set the tool to work finding what was currently profitable with very loose criteria. I had the minimum profit set to something like 1mil and profit per jump at about 50k, the first result I was presented with? Total profit of approximately 50mil with a profit per jump of about 1.4mil. Astounded? I most definitely was.

Since that first run I have done a few more, all being at least as profitable as that one, in terms of profit per jump (which is what really counts let's face it), I've even had a couple over 4mil per jump, which made me very happy indeed. I'm certainly enjoying using this tool, it reminds me of when I used to play Elite many years ago, racing around to deliver my stock before prices changed and so on. I'm also hoping that I can learn more of the market whilst doing this in order to place more intelligent buy and sell orders, not to mention reducing the sheer number of items I have to check across Regions before beginning my runs!

Covert Kitty (the creator of this excellent tool) has said that there will be a limit on how many people can get in on it, and if you have any interest at all in this sort of trading I can highly recommend it.

Let the Trading Begin

2010-04-09T06:19:00.001+02:00

I recently decided that I'd try my hand at trading. The reasons for this are simple, first up I have a load of ISK laying around doing nothing, and as long as I don't screw up it's a sensible way to make that actually work for me instead of looking pretty in my wallet. The other is that I have now found a Lai Dai Station with a refining facility of 50%, needing to move around 1.5mil m3 of ore there though would take far too many trips in my Iteron V and thus made me look at acquiring a Freighter.

So that's what I did, a couple of days ago I laid down 700mil and bought myself a big fat Obelisk, I then scoured around for any decent software or tools for assisting in finding good trade routes. Whilst doing that I shifted the ore over to my new "home" and then I was ready to start trading.

The first tool I tried was over at EVE-Central, quite frankly I have to say that's it's terrible. A lot of the market data is corrupted (intentionally as well) and the only thing preventing me getting burned was already having alts in various Regions allowing me to double check before proceeding, not to mention that the method to plot a route is more than flakey. Anyway, I won't go into too much detail on that other than to say it is only useful for a "quick look" at a market and even then that's being generous.

I then tried a free little tool called EVE Trade Finder by Alree, and although this tool is very nice, very impressive for a freebie, the lack of cache reading does drive you slightly insane as you must manually export every single log that you want to be included. Saying that it did help me find a couple of nice trade routes to begin with, nothing majorly spectacular but then I only exported around 1500 logs to test it out.

I'm now giving another tool a whirl, Trade Analysis Tool by Covert Kitty. So far, all I can say is WOW, this tool is very cool and very easy to use, very clean looking but best of all can read straight from the cache, so although you still have to select each item that you want to have included in the report, you only have to view the market details and not actually export them. Massive time saver right there. I did make one mistake though, and that was to test it at about 4am, it's now almost 6am and fortunately I'm near the end of the route, I'll update again on this after a few more days of testing, but if these profits continue I'll be rolling in billions of ISK soon!

Refining @ Lai Dai = Fail!

2010-04-04T23:48:00.001+02:00

As the title suggests I'm less than impressed with the facilities provided by the Lai Dai Corporation. My "main" industrial character (Cav) is a busy little mining bee, and of course, he also happens to have some really good R&D skills. When I decided to get him those skills I looked around at the various corps that offer R&D services and basically decided that Lai Dai would be the one for me.

Since then I really wish that I'd actually looked a bit closer at them, and the other corps, for what level of refining services they provided. For some really, really, really stupid reason I just assumed that a Corp like Lai Dai would have more than a few facilities at 50%. Pretty stupid thinking on my part quite clearly.

For the past few days now I've been flying around with Kal desperately hunting for a station that provides services of at least 40%, to my dismay everything I find is 30%, in one case it was only 25%! Outraged? Oh yes I am.

The hunt continues anyway, I need to find somewhere so that I can set up home there and mine away to my hearts content. If I can't find anywhere suitable, then I'll have to return to the standing grind with another Corp, though this time I'll ensure that the station has the right facilities, and the system has a nice amount of belts.

Internet Down? Eat Titz..

2010-04-04T23:45:00.001+02:00

There's nothing quite like some tasty Titz to munch on when your internet isn't working is there?

And the perfect (read: really easy and tasty) way to cook them is with one of these:

Which is, for some weird reason, located on the shelf in-between the crisps and the chocolates here in Austria.

Regardless, I can highly recommend picking them up and making yourself a tasty meal, certainly distracted me nicely enough whilst my internet was down and I couldn't get into EVE! :)

Got Cloak?

2010-04-02T01:23:00.003+02:00

I've seen quite some posts, not to mention a few whines, concerning cloaks, most of which included some suggestions, ideas and opinions on how they could be changed "for the better". I often (try to) fly a Stealth Bomber so of course I'm also interested in this topic and had a little discussion about it on Ventrilo.

I've also since noticed that a lot of these posts were from the end of last year, I read quite a lot of blogs on my iPhone and I can only assume something has gone screwy with my reader :( Will have to check into that but it doesn't invalidate the post, I'm still going to throw this opinion out there dammit!

A suggestion in a couple of those posts asks for cloaking devices to have some sort of signature radius or a seeping radius that could be scanned down by those who are exceptionally skilled (and equipped) in Astrometrics and its sub-skills. Some blogs have suggested that the signature could grow the longer the ship is in cloak, making it easier to locate, only resetting when the ship warps. Obviously this wouldn't have a majorly negative effect on those ships that are designed to cloak, seeing as they can warp cloaked and constantly reset the sig, though am definitely of the mind that the "seepage" of the stealth ships should just be 0 from the get-go, cloaking is supposed to be their major strength and that should be reinforced. I can't see this having a negative effect on people who are not really AFK, and I think it would only prove a minor inconvenience to botters really.

Another was for cloaks to require some form of fuel, something like Liquid Ozone appeals to me, or even the Isotope specific to the ships race. This could result in them operating much like Cyno Beacons, X amount is consumed upon activation and the Cycle lasts for X duration. The Cloaking skill could be modified to reduce the amount consumed by 5% or something per level (as well as the current targeting speed bonus), and the stealthing ships could have a bonus that either removes it completely by default, or at least multiplies the percentage of the reduction by 4 (resulting in 100% at Cloaking 5). I think this is my favourite idea at the moment, as even if the stealth ships require fuel, it would only cause problems for those that are not "serious" about it.

A few other ideas were bounced back and forth on Ventrilo, and I also suggested that cloaking devices could use a percentage of the ships capacitor every X seconds. additionally whilst in cloak capacitor regen should be disabled completely. The stealth ships however could be given a bonus to reduce this to 0, quite simply this would mean that only the stealth ships could stay in cloak permanently, other ships would eventually run out of cap and drop out of the cloak. I believe that this would see certain ships being used a bit more than they are now (hi2u Black Ops) without having too much of a negative effect on the cloaks used by non-stealth ships, just a time constraint.

Many might not agree with that, one of guys on Ventrilo didn't and put forth an alternative which is, in my opinion, quite interesting. The idea is quite simple, and is really only majorly negative to those people who fit cloaks so that they can feel 100% safe whilst ratting/plexing. He suggested that when you activate your cloak (on the non-stealth ships) all other high slot modules are immediately taken offline. You would then need to online each module (and wait forever for the cap to recharge between each activation) which applies quite a strong negative aspect to using cloaks on ships that are not designed for it, and definitely poops on botters. As I said, I do think it's a decent idea, though a part of me wants the system changed to give a chance at blowing up those ships not designed for this role!

Ship Satisfaction

2010-03-31T00:29:00.001+02:00

The Corp (and Alliance) has moved back to 0.0 after quite a long absence. This time around I decided that instead of making multiple trips in my Carrier to get lots of ships in place, and basically spending more time on logistics than actually using them, I'd travel lightly.

With such thoughts in mind I hit the hangar and set about making the tough choice on what to take. After much musing, I finally decided that I'd only take my Hurricane for ratting, a Cheetah so that I could probe sites (and hostiles) and my Manticore as I do seem to enjoy losing those.

We've now been down in 0.0 for a couple of days, and although my Hurricane still handles the belt rats quite happily, it is certainly another story if I even attempt to hit a anomaly or site on my lonesome. Basically I now find myself in the position of not being well enough equipped to do what I would like to, and having to now consider what other ship(s) to bring down (or even purchase).

Sid is pretty much an Amarr pilot. Though he is capable of flying Minmatar and Caldari ships, his Shield and Missile Skills are lacking a bit (quite a bit in the case of the latter). So pretty much whenever I'm looking at something it is either Amarr, or an armour tanked Minmatar vessel.

The first thing that popped into my head was the Legion. I've been wanting a T3 ship for quite some time, but after reading around quite a bit, I was left with the impression that buying a Legion is the first step on a road to unhappy times. After that I started considering the Battleships I have laying around, namely one of my many Abaddons.

I think the Abaddon is an excellent looking ship, not only that but with the right fitting, you can have a very solid tank on there, without sacrificing too much offensively. The only downside with an Abaddon? Lasers are not the ideal damage for where we are. It is still a tempting choice but now I find myself looking over the list of Minmatar ships and seeing if I can put any armour tank fits together that I think I'll enjoy. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Dead Space 2 - First Look

2010-03-28T12:27:00.002+02:00

Yesterday proved to be a very exciting day at PAX East for fans of survival horror. EA and Visceral Games lifted the lid and gave the more than eager audience a sneak peak at the coming sequel to Dead Space.

Here's the scoop from IGN.com (source):

PAX East 10: Dead Space 2 First Look

Iron Man just got his ass handed to him; check out Isaac's new suit.

by Greg Miller

March 27, 2010 - Holy crap, Isaac Clarke's new threads are awesome. How awesome? He can fly. Yes, everyone's favorite space engineer is getting a new suit in Dead Space 2, EA and Visceral Games' next entrant in the third-person/survival horror franchise, and today, the PAX East audience got a sneak peak.

At first, it was just some art of the new Metal Gear-looking suit (photos below – yes, we know that they're blurry), but then the panel brought out a very short, very exciting clip from Dead Space 2.

In it, Isaac's trucking through a train car and comes to the end of it. The next car is a ways down the indoor track, so just jumping isn't an opinion. Instead, Isaac leaps out of the car he's in and thrusters kick on from his boots and shins. It's a rocking flight for a second, but then he gets control, goes stiff, and does his best Iron Man impression as he zooms to the next train car.

Isaac swoops in, see's a necromorph, and blows it up by shooting its deformed hand. It explodes, some stuff falls from the ceiling, and the clip ends. It looked really, really cool and got quite the reaction from the fans in attendance.

The panel was also pressed about bringing Dead Space Extraction to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. They wouldn't answer directly, but they did say to "keep your ears peeled."

Look for more on Dead Space 2 (and maybe an Extraction port) soon , but until then, enjoy these images…

Sadly for me, my Xbox 360 has been dying a slow, somewhat painful death for some considerable time. This makes playing anything an utter nightmare as at any point the ring of death pops up and interrupts my play. I really should get it fixed (or get a new one) as I have missed out on quite a few interesting titles because of this, including the original Dead Space.

Survival horror is not normally my thing, I always found Resident Evil to be too slow and, quite frankly, a bit boring for my tastes. However the Dead Space franchise is certainly something that is on my "To Play" list, the moment my 360 situation is fixed that is!

Dead Space 2 will be coming to the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 in Q1 2011.

Microsoft Courier

2010-03-27T18:02:00.001+01:00

Old news now, but I'm more than excited to see what's happening with the MS Courier rather than Apple's iPad. Given unlimited funds I would no doubt own an iPad for the pure convenience of having all my books available in one portable location, as well as more convenient web surfing (without flash though.....) than on my laptop or PC.

I do not however have unlimited funds, likely I will not own a MS Courier for some considerable time after (if?) it is released. But this is a product that I think would be very, very useful, and serves in a completely different role to that of the iPad. The MS Courier is clearly touted as a creative (and professional) assistant, whereas the iPad is mainly for leisure. I have indeed salivated somewhat when looking at the Courier videos that are kicking about, and I can easily see one of these taking over the spot in my bag currently reserved for my Moleskin notebook, as well as being far more useful to boot.

If you are not aware of what the MS Courier is and what it can do, check out the following video:

Flipper Fishing

2010-03-27T16:43:00.001+01:00

I'm not going to bother going into too many details, however I recently had my first real encounter with can flippers and wanted to share my opinion on it. As a side note I did manage to recover all of my ore, so it wasn't a major problem for me.

Now, personally I think it's more than slightly backward the way the system concerning "stealing" works at present. Let's face it, most industrial characters are just that, industrial characters. The vast majority of their skill points are pumped into Industry and, most likely, Science. Although you are given the "all clear" by Concord to visit some retribution on the flipper, the chances are that he is significantly better equipped for a combat encounter and will most likely slap you about with impunity, for a start he's sitting in a combat ship and you're (most likely) in a mining vessel...

And you can't just flip it back immediately, as then he get's the same "all clear" from Concord to rip you apart, which he definitely will do as you're sitting in your barge/exhumer and everybody loves a free kill.

Which means (especially for those solo miners with 1 account) that you just have to suck up the loss, and then refrain from jet can mining (travelling back to station every single time your hold is full...) unless you know that you're 100% safe to do so. A second account dedicated to hauling the gathered ore obviously removes the problem completely. Though personally I'm a bit of a greedy bugger and want both my industrial characters raking in the ore, until there's a decent amount to haul back to station. I could use my combat character to haul with (he does have industrial ship skills as well), but that's not ideal when my desktop PC isn't available. The laptop complains quite a bit when I have three instances of EVE running.

But why does stealing not incur the wrath of Concord? Is it too harsh a punishment for such a crime? Why is it more than acceptable to do such a thing? Why does the aggression timer only allow you to engage the flipper and not your entire fleet?

I do think that having Concord drop in and pop the flipper is (maybe) a bit harsh, as the "crime" isn't really equal to opening fire on someone. However I also think that when someone steals from you, you should simply be allowed to "steal" it back, without giving them permission to open fire on you. I also think that the flipper should be fair game to your entire fleet, and not just the creator of the can. You see, the way I see that is it would not completely eradicate such things from happening, it would just require that those doing it actually take a serious risk whenever they attempt it.

Flipper A (let's call him Gimp) could no longer come out and flip your can with his shiny combat ship, bristling with ordinance and (at the moment at least) looking like nothing more than a school bully. If he were foolish enough to do this, you could just flip it back and there isn't really anything he could do, other than attempt to suicide kill you. This continual flipping could go on for a long time, but he's not going to stick around doing that as eventually you're likely to get some support (unless you really are Billy No-Mates). Being aggressed to your entire fleet would mean that at any minute a world of pain could warp in on him and do a merry little dance. Basically, that nice little bully tactic would be worth bugger all.

Instead he would have to bring something with a sizeable cargo hold straight off the bat. The bigger that is, the more he can steal. Sure he can scout about for potential targets in a suitably small, fast ship, but he's not going to be able to intimidate the poor miner with his combat vessel. In this case though, those that are paying attention to their surroundings (and have the means) can be prepared for the possibility of an incoming flip.

Another solution (and a little ISK sink - like we don't have enough of those) would be the possibility of purchasing some sort of "Theft Insurance" that would call in the Concord "fast response unit" should any swipe from your cans.

The way I see it at the moment is that it is far too easy for these people to steal and get away with it completely and I really cannot fathom why the onus is upon the 'innocent' miner in Empire space to protect the fruits of his labour.

Reporting for Duty Sir!

2010-03-27T16:12:00.001+01:00

Recently I returned actively to EVE and was faced with the joyful task of needing to relocate my gear to Hek where the Corp is [currently] based. Now, I have 3 characters at present, and amongst them quite a few ships, ranging from Interceptors to Battleships, Exhumers, Mining Barges, Industrials and Covert Ops. In fact, I have too many ships in my opinion. Fortunately amongst all these I also have a Carrier. With Sids skills (my combat and Carrier pilot) the jump from his location (Pakkonen) to Hek (well, not Hek directly but the system nearby) was possible in a single leap. Utilising my own Cyno alts made life even easier.

I only had one real scare during this period, and that was when someone in the system I was jumping to targetted up my Cyno alt, undocking Sid in his Abaddon which is bristling with ordinance and locking the Dominix in short order immediately quelled his fire. This was fortunate as I was (and am currently) running purely on my MacBook Pro, multi-clients on a laptop is not ideal in the calmest of situations, and I have no idea how well it would perform in a combat situation (but I don't think too good). A 1v1 was offered, which I declined due to "time constraints", obviously I did not want to let him know about the laptop, and I was concerned that it was just a trap.

Other than this little excitement, my jumps went without a hitch, though getting fuel to my Carrier in Pakkonen did prove more than problematic. Myself (on Sid) and a Corp mate had to sit on the gate to deter a rather persistent pirate who was being a bit too successful in ambushing the unwary trying to enter the system. The presence of my RR Armageddon, as well as my Corp mate in his Stealth Bomber and of course the sentry guns created a clear path for my hauler to come through and resupply the Archon waiting to transport my wares.

Once all my ships were relocated, I moved my mining gear out, ready to bring in some ISK in the relative safety of Empire space whilst waiting until I have access to my desktop machine again to return to combat. I also hauled around a load of junk for reprocessing and sold off the minerals returned from that, as well as other assets that I did not need. In total I netted about 500mil, and I still have a load of BPC's that need to be listed.

And that's what I've been doing for the past few days, steadily mining away at whatever is profitable and attempting to bring in as much ISK as I can. I'm pushing one of my characters (Kalrain) towards an Orca at the moment in his never ending quest to be the best support possible for both Sid and Cavindal (my industrial/mining character).

Speaking of Cavindal I really need to finish off his Lai Dai standings, currently sitting at 5.50, so it's not that much further until he has access to all the R&D Agents and a decent leap in research points per day.

About Lab Utopia

2010-03-27T12:58:00.003+01:00

Welcome to Lab Utopia, a blog where you’ll find news and information concerning games, programming, technology and most likely any other random thing that catches my attention strongly enough.

My name is Stephen Venables and I’ve been a gamer for pretty much as long as I can remember, often under the name “charl8tan”. For the past 8 and a bit years I’ve also been working in the Games Industry in a variety of roles from Tester to Producer. I’m also trying to write a book (or should I say a few books) and as I get further along that path I may post segments here on the blog.

My History

For many years I was a very avid, hardcore gamer. Beginning early on with my mighty Spectrum 48k (rubber keys and a horrendously ugly separate tape deck) and progressing through quite literally all the consoles and more than a few computers, until solidly returning to PC gaming in the mid 90’s (though I still enjoy a bit of console gaming even today). Although I was always a bit of instant gratification junky, spending most of my gaming time playing FPS titles, I always enjoyed a good solid RPG (Baldurs Gate and the like) and so found myself slowly entering the world of MMO’s. Dark Age of Camelot was my first foray into that world, followed by a sojourn through space in Star Wars Galaxies. Inevitably came World of Warcraft which I was thoroughly addicted to for a good while, even going out to work for Blizzard in France as a GM. That came to a close with the release of Warhammer Online (which left me disappointed), followed by a trip into Aion.

However, back during my time at Blizzard, a colleague of mine introduced me to a rather intriguing title, EVE Online. Immediately I was taken aback at how complex this game was, it made every other MMO I’d played seem almost childish. This here was an MMO for the serious, mature player. A game where your success (or failure) was directly linked to not only your ability to hit the right buttons, but also to apply your mind and make calculated, intelligent decisions. This applied to everything, even the offloading of “trash” loot, for were you foolish enough to just do a quick sale, you could find yourself missing out an a large amount of cash for just a couple of minutes flying.

That was back in 2005, my friend funded me and insisted that I get my Learning Skills done before anything else. Of course I had my eye on the mighty Megathron (the reason my first character was Gallente), but I toiled away at those skills and eventually lost interest as I paid a subscription just to sit in station training. I returned to EVE a couple of times over the years, but never really got into it fully until my time in Warhammer was coming to an end. I realised that I’d been left unfulfilled by my MMO experiences, and that EVE was where I wanted to be. So I came back, started another new character (on a second account) to learn the ropes again and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying my time ever since. I did have another pause fairly recently, but during that time I managed to keep my accounts active for skill training, I’m also in a Corp this time around that I thoroughly enjoy. The people are helpful, friendly and best of all a real good laugh, beyond that they also know a lot about the game and help me often with what must seem silly questions.

These days my time for gaming is somewhat limited, I’m definitely more of a casual gamer now. Instead my time is occupied most often by my wonderful wife and two amazing kids. It definitely has moments that are more stressful, but it is also infinitely more rewarding and I am certainly more than happy to no longer be a hardcore-gamer.

Why Lab Utopia?

I decided to create this blog as I would like to share my experiences and opinions on gaming, EVE, programming and other things with the world. I read quite a few blogs myself and have learned many useful things (not only to do with EVE) from them. This is (I hope) a way of me giving something back.

Coming up with a name proved to be a bit of a nightmare, and I'd like to thank my wife for her help in that as everything I came up with was either really terrible, or already taken!

I hope you find future posts interesting, and enjoy reading this blog.

~ Stephen Venables