Good jobs take advantage of your strengths. Great jobs take advantage of your weaknesses.
A system that is bad design in most games can be a great feature in a game that consciously builds around it. Continue reading
Category Archives: EVE Online
MMO Baby Fat
Keen has a post up asking whether Guild Wars 2 will surpass his “3-month” rule-of-thumb. He uses it as a metric for MMO success. How much of the launch population stays around after three months? If “most” have left, then Keen chalks it up to a bad-egg MMO. Rift, Warhammer Online, and the like seem to fall under his rule. The problem with his rule is whether it is even a valid measurement. Has any recent MMO passed 3 months under Keen’s rule-of-thumb?
The rule appears based on the mass egress of players at around 90 days. The first month, like a good drug, is free for subscription-based games. The second month begins the actual monthly tithe, which is darn near automatic in the minds of many players. It’s the moment where I would guess players on the fence decide to throw just a little more money at it since it’s just a fraction of the money already spent. It’s at the third month that I think issues, boredom, or grass-is-greener syndromes overcome the value of continuing to play. Players are implicitly asked the question of whether it is worth staying. Continue reading
[Eve] Mauling a Moros, Saving a System
As per usual, the clients of Surely You’re Joking, were under assault from a star fleet looking to evict them from their Wormhole. In quite unusual fashion, they hired us three hours before their tower was set to exit Reinforce… Now under normal circumstances we would ignore their cries of desperation because the logistics of moving our fleet out of our home system, traveling through known space and finding a way into their sieged system, gathering sufficient intel to ensure victory and then taking the field, requires significantly more than three hours notice to accomplish… but despite our attempts to convince him otherwise, the Glorious Leader was insistant that we were going to make this happen.
We started rolling our static connection to find a way out. Initially with so little time to travel, and with the clients having no way for us to get into their hole, our plan was to roll our static C6 until we found a C6 static 5, and then roll that 5 in hopes of K162′ing into the Target Wormhole. In case you are wondering, the statistical probability of success is rather close to zero, but we had no choice. After about thirty minutes the clients located a High Security exit, through their static C3 and delivered us our entrance point… 49 jumps from our current K-Space exit… and only one hour remaining on their tower clock.
With time ticking away, our very shiny fleet burned through a dozen Low Security systems to get into High Sec and make our way across the galaxy in hopes of entering before the enemies destroy the tower, decimate the capital fleet floating in the shields and force our clients from their home….
We entered the C3 that leads to the Target Hole just as the tower is destroyed and the shields drop. Has Surely You’re Joking finally failed to complete a merc contract?
I jumped into the wormhole first in my trusty bait drake, Nymeria, and started shooting their Warp Disruption bubble in hopes that they would warp to kill me, get trapped in their own bubble and then get shredded by our fleet lurking just on the other side. They recognized my Alliance tag however, and wisely chose instead to flee to their small tower, knowing that even though they outnumbered us 2 to 1, and had 3 Dreadnought Capital Ships in system, they were no match for our deadly efficiency.
Only one problem for them… one of their Moros pilots was stuck in Siege at the wasteland of the former tower, so we warped the fleet in and engaged, hoping for either a Capital killmail, to lure their fleet to engage us, or well… both! The Moros never stood a chance… and chose cowardice over dying like a man.
Our fleet had a bubble of our own, and caught his pod before the coward could flee the field of battle…. This is what Killmail Whoring looks like:
After dealing with the Moros, we secured the system, while Pell began negotiations with the enemy invaders. They wanted the system, but realized that while taking it from our clients was one level of difficulty, holding it with [HAHA] in the game, was another level they were neither equipped to handle, nor prepared to engage, so they accepted Pell’s offer to abandon the system with only the loss of their pride and their Moros as the badges of their shame.
Our clients stood amazed as we swooped in at the last-minute and rescued them with elite precision and a casual nonchalance about engaging outnumbered and out-classed with regards to ships, and WINNING! While they did lose a tower, and a few tower modules, we saved their Capitals, fleet, the tower loot and their system. We proposed our standard fee for services, and they paid in a blink of an eye, and given the emergency nature of the deal, and their gratitude, they doubled the payment unsolicited to express their gratitude.
Just another day in the life of the top mercenary gang in Wormhole space.
~Cyndre
[Eve] Shooting Blues
My lack of Eve updates should not be confused with a lack of gameplay or a waning of interest in New Eden… Rather, INQ joining Surely You’re Joking [HAHA], one of the top wormhole alliances in the game, has created a serious obstacle to my ability to discuss the goings on in Eve due to the saturation of operational secrecy and security concerns related to just about everything we do.
…and boy do I have stories… I would tell you them, but then I’d have to kill you.
[Eve] The Adventures of Commander Nooblet
I have been busy playing Eve lately, which has severely limited my time to write about playing it. I’ve started to pen a number of tales, only to have Mumble explode with a warning of imminent PvP, an operation forming up or most commonly, pilots needed for some crazy scheme hatched by our fearless leader usually involving an enemy wormhole several jumps away, and the wanton destruction of everything they hold dear.
My Adventures have been nothing short of epic, but I am still a Nooblet Eve pilot, just barely coming up on 5,000,000 skill points on my main account and living this unbelievable and crazy wormhole life, that is nothing short of the pinnacle of Eve action. Moving into the C5 Class Wormhole, and joining the alliance Surely You’re Joking was the best move we could have made, and has revealed so many new layers of Eve to me.
[Eve] Sleepers
[Eve] The Welcome Wagon
So you want to live in a Wormhole?
Well, lucky for you we’re the W-Space Welcome Wagon!
[Eve] The J221447 Contract
The residents of the C3 were beset upon all sides by the invasion forces of Cockroach Industries. The large Amarr Tower had been brought online while they slept, and before they could stage a resistance, the found themselves out-manned, outgunned and under siege in their own home. With nowhere to run, and the last shreds of hope fading, they reached out to the skilled wormhole mercenaries of Surely You’re Joking to see if there was anything that could stop the invasion…
Within the hour, our fleet was formed and burning through HiSec to the static wormhole entrance to lay siege to the invaders, and expel them from our client’s home system.
[Eve] What Next?
Evenings in New Eden have seen a lot of activity from the pilots of INQ-E recently. Ten-man fleets are becoming commonplace and the diversity of our activities has been very enjoyable and very rewarding. We spent some time in Null, we have had a steady string of Grav sites and have hauled in so much ore we have not only filled the Corp POS holds to overflowing, but it has started spilling over into Weezi’s POS hanger as well, and that is in danger of capping out… We have been running combat sites non-stop and even have had a bit of time to pew pew in LoSec or the other wormhole connections that have spawned. We now run Ore Refinery, Gas Reactions, Invention, BPC Research, Ammo Production, and are producing T2 Modules inside the hole….
Busy, profitable, and fun, and the conversation every night turns to ‘whats next?’
[Eve] Two Months
Today marks two months since I first set foot in New Eden. It is hard to believe it has only been that long because I feel like I have seen and accomplished a lot in that very short period of time. Let’s take a moment to reflect on what has happened over the last few months and take stock of my current situation and near term goals.
I joined INQ-E, moved into a C3 Wormhole, celebrated a 9th Anniversary, Burn Jita, Hulkageddon, the list goes on an on… all in two months. That is more that I would expect from a year in most MMOs.