Category: EVE Online

Wireless EVE

EVE[EVE Online] The latest issue of E:ON magazine had a little blurb on page 9, but what an exciting blurb it is – at least to me.

Announced at the Fanfest back in October was CCP’s intention to release a mobile edition of EVE. Currently the product of a joint research project between CCP and Reykjavik University, a limited prototype client is already running on GSM phones, which allow users to log into the game, access characters, set skill training and manage items.

“EVE is a game where you can do a lot of things without having full 3D,” says Hilmar Petursson, CCP’s CEO. “We are focusing on everything that can be done in-station and hopefully players will also be able to chat and monitor chat channels, although this is one of the more difficult parts to implement.”

“It’s coming along,” he adds, “but there are a lot of commercial and security issues to work out.”

What a cool idea and I can’t wait to try it out.

– Ethic

EVE Gets Serious

EVE[EVE Online] “Human Cattle” is a tier II Gallente mission chain in EVE, and it has some of the hardest missions I have ever seen. Granted, I am not optimized for heavy combat, but that ambush that started with blowing off half my shields was rough.

The missions get progressively harder, such that I was frequently destroying one target, fleeing to repair my hull, then going back. Then I got to the last area. Those big red crosses are all really big ships. The smaller ones I can solo, given time, if there are only two or three of them.
Human Cattle 1 My ship is at that angle because I am getting out of Dodge. And now the real picture…

Continue reading EVE Gets Serious

Same Character, Different Game

EVE[EVE Online] I seem to have three characters, which I play across a number of games. As I have mentioned, I tend towards healers and support classes. In City of Heroes, I have two level 50 Defenders, and my highest level villain is a Thermal Radiation Corruptor (buffer/healer). I have the name Zubon reserved as a Defender on almost every server. My second character is a mage/blaster/whatever they are called in your game: the glass cannon. My third character is the pet class. Ideally you combine them, so my Dark Age of Camelot character was a Theurgist (nuking mage with buffs and quasi-pets).

Flying around EVE Online while my superhero wife worked on hitting level 50, I contemplated EVE drones and CoV Masterminds, since both of my current main characters in CoV are Masterminds. When I am not playing the game where my henchmen destroy my enemies for me, I play the game where my drones destroy my enemies for me. I seem to have turned the two most polar opposite games out there into the same game. That feels really weird.

On the other hand, I am posting during combat, so there are advantages to playing this way.

Sweet Mother of Pearl!

EVE[EVE Online] I logged back into EVE Online tonight. I do not know how much has changed, but the changes to my character since I last logged on are disorienting. I used to hunt pirates almost entirely with drones. Now most of my drones will not fit in my ship, and my skills changed so that I cannot control as many. So that is a switch. More surprises to come as I poke around, I suspect.

Anyone know a good ship with a 125 m3 or larger drone bay? My ogres want to go back to work, preferably without investing a few months of skills in being able to use them again. I guess I’ll need to remember how these guns work. Hmph. I mostly just used them to aggravate far off enemies who I did not feel like chasing: shoot them once, they come closer, and my drones eat them.

I guess this is what happens when you leave a game for six months. Did the Iteron Mark V used to hold more? I recall its holding much more cargo than a Mark IV.

: Zubon

EVE Dev Blog – Big Bada Bewn?

EVE[EVE Online] One thing I really like about the EVE devs is their blog. They frequently post things about the game. Sometimes it is ideas they are pondering and sometimes it is new changes coming to the game. They even allow players to respond back, what a concept!

The most recent dev blog is one I enjoyed in particular. It discusses some new ships being introduced into the game: Carriers, Titans and Motherships. Let me run down some of the details for you.

Continue reading EVE Dev Blog – Big Bada Bewn?

Real Ads, Fake Money

EVE[EVE Online] EVE Online has this print magazine you can subscribe to, called EON. In the first issue, they offered advertising to the various corporations in-game. It was a new way to try to expand your corp. Understand, this is a real magazine – delivered to your home.

The devs just announced that they will be selling ad space in the future issues. But get this, it will cost you ISK (the in-game currency of EVE). In fact, it appears to cost you 200 million ISK to place an ad. Now that is a bit of a twist, right?

Continue reading Real Ads, Fake Money

Cloak and Dagger

EVE[EVE Online] I’ve decided to train up the skills that would allow me to fly a covert ops ship with the covert ops cloaking device. This is supposed to allow me to fly around undetected. I’m hoping there is something cool to be had with it, perhaps smuggling opportunities (delivering high priced items into 0.0 space). I understand the cloaking device will not allow you to transport stolen goods past Concord, so that is out.

Continue reading Cloak and Dagger

Interview: Istvaan Shogaatsu

EVE[EVE Online] Istvaan Shogaatsu and his Corporation, “Guiding Hand Social Club” recently made waves in EVE for infiltrating yet another Corporation (under contract), making off with over 30 billion ISK worth of items and in-game cash, pod-killing their CEO and stealing a super rare ship. I managed to catch up with the man behind the mega-theft and he politely granted me an interview. Here it is:

Ethic: Lets start out with the latest big news out of the Guiding Hand Social Club (GH-SC). You had an assignment to, as you put it, “utterly demolish Mirial and bring all who followed her to their knees in one fell swoop”. Mirial was the CEO of Ubiqua Seraph corporation. I think everyone can agree that you certainly did what you had been hired to do.

Has there been any negative fallout for you from completing that assignment? From players? From CCP (the company that makes EVE Online)?

Istvaan Shogaatsu: No less than nine threats upon my life immediately after the major heist, delivered chiefly through email, arriving from hotmails or anon remailers. A GM also complained that our action has flooded them with petitions, but this was mostly in good fun on their part.

Continue reading Interview: Istvaan Shogaatsu