Category: EVE Online

What glorious news is this? Band of Brothers is was a group of mostly elder EVE Online players that acted the playground bully for the last few years. They destroyed the alliance I was in (ASCN) and pretty much stuck their hands into anything they could mess with. It’s all part of the game, sure, but they had a knack for making things that were once fun – well not so much any more.

I have just heard the news that their alliance has been destroyed thanks to the Goons.

BoB is dead! BoB is dead! Let them shout from the rooftops! BoB is dead. For now.

– Ethic

I accepted a 5-day “welcome back” offer to EVE Online. It might take me five days to figure out where I am and what is going on.

I have about 8 million skill points. I was feeling pretty good about that, until the new (since I last played) Certificates showed me what a newb I am. I have 4 certificates, two of them in Drones. But I am a newb flying an Iteron V, darn it.

(For the curious, that is 2.7 million in Spaceship Command, 2.2 in Learning, 1.6 in Drones, .6 in Engineering, .5 in Social, and the rest scattered.)

: Zubon

How many people do you think they could get to sign up for this deal:

Due to popular demand, CCP is proud to announce EVE Offline! This evolution in MMO gaming allows you to create a new type of character, one accessible from the internet or your mobile phone, without the full game client. Take EVE Online’s acclaimed real time skill advancement system to the next level, changing your training in progress to another skill or even queuing up to five skills to start when your current training completes. No need to worry about losing points! As an extra bonus, EVE Offline characters will accumulate skill points 50% faster than normal characters.

You should know a few things before you take the plunge offline. First, EVE Offline characters are not part of a standard account. You can start an EVE Offline account for $5/month or add one to an active EVE Online account for $3/month. Second, these must be new characters, although we are working on a system to convert existing characters to EVE Offline. Third, because they are not using the game client, EVE Offline characters cannot log onto the game servers.

How will I get my skill books, you might ask. All EVE Offline characters get them free! You will have access to all skills at no cost, provided you have the prerequisite skills. As an added bonus, you can buy skill books with your existing EVE Online character and send them to your EVE Offline character or your friends’, and training points will accumulate an additional 50% faster on bought books, twice the normal speed!

Take your game to the next level by making your next character EVE Online character an Offline Character!

They could probably get a few more by denying rumors that do not exist, like “there are no plans at this time to allow EVE Offline characters to be converted to EVE Online characters.” But my real question is, how many of you play your EVE characters like this anyway, except for ~12 hours a month, only at full cost with no training bonus?

: Zubon

I received a re-subscription offer this week. Not a discount, not a coupon, not trial time: just an e-mail of “We would like you to re-activate your account. We have new stuff!” So thanks for letting me know that I can still pay full price. Glad to hear that you want my business.

: Zubon

ur doin it wrong

My jaw hit the floor while watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica on SciFi tonight. There, before my eyes, was a commercial for EVE Online. Amazing. Nice work CCP!

– Ethic

According to TechSpot, as well as several other sources, the source code for the EVEOnline client program has been leaked and is merrily making its way around the torrents right now. This, by itself, would be pretty big news. Even more interesting, however, are allegations that CCP, understanding that a bell can’t be unrung, is instead seeding torrents themselves, then taking a banhammer to any IP address that they find downloading the source.

I saw this at Ole Bald Angus the Monk’s site and had to share it. It is fantastic.

– Ethic

After all the comments on that last EVE Online post, I gave it a try for the first time today. I basically just worked my way through the tutorials, but had a good time. I can see how the environment might feel tedious after a while, but I’m sure I’ll be playing some more.

I have no idea whether the choices I made during character creation were reversible, but it didn’t seem like it. Man, the whole irreversible character development mechanic is so backwards in long-term games like these. It will be nice when it’s finally died out.

I also saw that CCP just started accepting candidacies for the Council of Stellar Management, or as their news post was amusingly titled, the Council of Stellar Awesomeness. They announced their intent to do this months ago, so I’m not sure how much of this is old news, but the details are pretty fascinating to me. This is a player-elected council of nine members who represent the playerbase to CCP, and CCP in turn promises to “attempt to accomodate all reasonable [emphasis mine] requests by player Representatives” and to “do everything in its power to resolve the topics presented.” They’re taking it pretty seriously, too — each term of the council requires a face-to-face meeting at the CCP offices, with travel (to Iceland!), lodging, and food paid for by CCP.

Continue reading Player governance in EVE

I’ve always been curious about EVE Online, but today I stumbled across something that has made me want to play more than anything else I’ve seen so far:

What a cool guild (er, excuse me, corporation) recruitment. I really think the whole single-server approach EVE has is key here; it creates more of an (authentic) feeling that what you do matters. It doesn’t just affect the 1% of EVE players who happen to be using your server, it affects everyone who plays EVE.

If you are the one guy who tackles the scout who gets killed who doesn’t provide good reconaissance etc etc… you will see the whole EVE blogosphere light up with news about the battle you were in, because it significantly changed the politics and economics of the game for everyone. And that’s really cool.

The main drawbacks I hear about are the crazily complex UI, extensive grinding & downtime, and an emotional emptiness (becuase, you know, you’re spending hours as a gray box flying around in outer space.) And those do sound like pretty big drawbacks.

I’m really tempted to give it a shot, but I feel torn. Could I handle two MMO’s? If something grabs me, I usually really want to get into it, and I don’t think I’m ready to leave WoW behind. We’ll see.