BB 31: The Game Outside Eve Online

The 31st Blog Banter is out and the topic is an Eve Community Review. This also happens to be my first crack at a BB \o/  Its fun to be an active part of the action as opposed to just the regular reader. 

"As any games journalist would probably tell you, a true and complete review of a Massively Multiplayer Online game is impossible. MMOs are vast, forever evolving entities with too much content for a single reviewer to produce a fair and accurate review. However, a collection of dedicated bloggers and EVE players (past and present) with a wide range of experience in various aspects of the game might be able to pull it off.

This special 'End of Year' Blog Banter edition aims to be a crowd-sourced game review. Using your gaming knowledge and experience, join the community in writing a fair and qualified review of EVE Online: Crucible. This can be presented in any manner of your choosing, but will ideally include some kind of scoring system.

With each Blog Banter participant reviewing the areas of EVE Online in which they specialise, the result should be a Metacritic-esque and accurate review by the people who know best."

 Eve Online. Where to start? I know where I started. I began playing Eve at an internship almost three years ago, just after Apocrypha was released. Its been my first and only MMO, and I still remember asking, "So, how do you win at Eve?" I was of course greeted with a bit of a laugh, and in hind sight, I definitely deserved it. "Winning at Eve" is really more of a meme than an actual objective at this point. But as I talked to the guys at work, I could see their eyes light up about how excited they were about this game. They talked about all of the possibilities and all of the roles you could play. They showed me a couple diagrams online to give me the idea. First was all the ships of New Eden:

I didn't realize I'd be flying the barely visible ones..

So at this point I was interested to say the least. We spent the rest of the afternoon talking about it, and I knew I had to at least give it shot. Just before I headed home that day, they showed me this graphic too, which I'm sure we've all seen by now. Okay, a little intimidated, but nothing I couldn't overcome.

Not too far from the truth

I spent hours that first weekend flying around in a freaking Velator. I couldn't wait til I had the funds for that 26,000 isk Atron. I was hooked though. So I kept playing, and after a while, my friends from the internship slowly faded out of Eve. I spent a while (way too long) running missions aimlessly. Its only really been recently that I've been getting into pvp legitimately, and I guess I'm still a bit of a noob in that respect, despite that fact that I'm about to cross 50M SP.

Its been a long ride, and its mostly been a blast. I think there were a few things that CCP and my friends didn't initially tell me about though. First of all, no one ever told me how much time I'd spend doing things other than flying internet spaceships. I've spent countless hours managing POS's, parsing through market windows for trade and jumping from system to system for any other reason. Eve can often be more of a job than a game. 

The second thing that no one told me about Eve was that I'd spend so much time out of game talking, thinking and strategizing about Eve. I've spent an absolutely stupid amount of time in applications like EFT and Evemon. Why do I do it? Because its so damn interesting. Why did I listen to hours of Eve podcasts on the way home to my Dad's house this Christmas? Same reason. Theory-crafting about Eve is a beautiful thing. How can I beat this fleet composition? Where will they move next? How can implants/boosters/etc give me the edge I need? All of this doesn't even scratch the surface of inter-alliance politics and null sec in general. Its everything. I've probably spent even more time out of game thinking and planning about Eve than I've played. 

What all of this comes down to is simple. CCP got it right when they said Eve is real. I wasn't too thrilled with their promotional campaign at the time due to the state of Incarna, but they were right. Eve is a great game, but its so much more. Look at media like the Clarion Call or Clear Skies series. Eve is virtual blood, sweat, and tears. Eve is real.

So my review of Eve? Its a pretty solid game. Its certainly still a work in progress, and Crucible has been a fantastic step in that direction. At the end of the day, its so much more though. Its a full immersive simulation in an alternate universe, and it can be so addictive it should come with a warning label. That's the Eve that I know.

-- Rollins

Finals Slowdown

Well, Eve time has been a bit slow recently. I'm going through finals week, which isn't too terrible, but it does mean a lot less play time. Anyway, here's a quick update on what's been going on.

One thing I always try to find time for is to update market orders on my trade alt. Let's say Crucible has been a bit profitable in that respect. Let's say it smashed my single week trade records -- twice. Its nice to see the wallet grow by over 1 billion per week with minimal work to update orders. I think its pretty clear a significant number of players resubbed. Hopefully we'll see that hold over the next few months (Ball is in your court CCP).

Not too terrible, huh?

 By the way, for any budding traders, the above app is an iPhone app called EVE Trader (brilliant name, I know), and its fantastic. I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone trading in Eve. Supports multiple characters, shows transactions and calculates reports. I love it.

Anyway, as I said above, in game time has been a little slow. The corp search continues for TFirish3, with some promising offers so far (could be headed to Curse, not to ruin any surprises). Other than that, just waiting it out til this weekend when I can undock again for real. Nothing too flashy for right now, but this winter break should be a blast.

--Rollins

Weekend Review 12/4

I've decided I'll start doing a Weekend Review given that I'd like to have a regular series of posts and I'm primarily a weekend player. Fairly straight forward, huh?

Anyway, not a bad weekend in Eve, a bit uneventful. Friday was mostly playing station games, logging off 5-2, which is never too bad. I lost a Rifter and a Punisher before deciding to bring out the Drake. Saturday was a similar story, fleeting up and catching a few kills before dying in a fire courtesy of 18 red pilots.

I think that's one of the most frustrating things about RVB: the fleet warfare is evenly matched to the point where its a push, and without ECM or Logi's there's nothing really to tip the scales. That's why I've been pushing to get some 1v1's recently, although I don't arrange them. Arranged 1v1's are for sissies. I've been trying to get a decent fight in the Enyo since Crucible dropped last week, but it can be tough to pick off a lone guy in RVB sometimes. Its not for lack of effort though

My Enyo fit is pretty standard -- lots of DPS, armor tank and a small neut. Pre-Crucible, it has DPS just short of 300 before overheating. With the blaster buff (to include tracking, and therefore effective DPS), it should be an absolute beast. It is a little bit on the slow side, but I think if it gets within scram range, it should be good to go. Looking forward to testing it out when I find a good target.

I also picked up a Vagabond in Jita this weekend. I was looking at the numbers in EFT (Yes, I am an EFT whore. No, I don't think battles are fought in the fitting window.) and a Vaga loaded with Barrage looks like too much fun not to try. Similar situation as the Enyo though -- I don't want to lose it in a fleet battle where I'll get insta-primaried for flying something shiny. 

Speaking of Jita by the way, I have a very strong urge to suicide gank someone's pod just to see what implants they have on the killmail. I've been dying to get this sec status down. Arty Thrasher, coming right up.

Anyway, I'm feeling the null sec bug start to bite me. I'm going to keep Tommy Rollins in RVB, but I think I'm taking TFirish3 out into the wild. RVB is great, but I'm looking for the real deal. I want small gang PVP for the moment. Blobs are boring, and I'm not too interested in hitting up Sov warfare at the moment. Smashing towers just doesn't do it for me. I'm thinking Syndicate though; it just kind of feels like home. I was actually in touch with a corp today about potentially joining up with them. Watch this space over the next couple weeks; I'm thinking I'll make the change pretty soon.

--Rollins

Crucible: Thoughts

Official Eve Crucible Trailer

Well I've gotta say, Crucible seems to have had an incredibly warm reception, and I can see why. As a player who started in Apocrypha, I didn't realize how incredible that expansion was. T3's and Wormholes -- wow. I remember my thoughts about each expansion, and I've never been as excited as I have been for Crucible (although removing learning skills with Incursion was pretty nice).

To begin -- HYBRIDS. I've been primarily a Gallente pilot for quite a while, and its freaking fantastic to see a boost for them. For a long time, Gallente has had the closest range, highest damage, but most of their ships are relatively slow, and they lack the resist bonused ships that Caldari and Amarr have. I haven't had a chance to test out the new bonuses yet (increased damage and tracking for both blasters and rails), but I'm optimistic.

Tier 3 Battlecruisers are another awesome feature of the expansion. These glass cannons, or pocket-battleships as Kirith Kodachi is calling them, are intriguing to say the least. They seem to be a potentially potent anti-capital weapon with the new fighter bomber balancing. The Tr 3 BC's also give us a huge new ganking toy. I'm looking at you, Mittani (PS: Big fan of the Ice Interdiction. Not a fan as someone who needs it for his Thanatos, but I love the idea). I'll definitely pick some of these up as prices come down (200m+ for a BC? No thanks).

I am a little disappointed by the Dramiel nerf, but I understand it. All in all, it doesn't look too bad (I'm pretty sure I can still fit a dual-prop, 150mm AC/Rocket Dram with some meta 4 gear, but I haven't run the numbers yet). I was trying to go out and lose these before the patch, but I just couldn't lose one ;)

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=14692727

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=14690926

Overall, there are a ton of little features in this expansion, and all of them together should make this a great one. I'm going to pick up an Enyo at Jita tonight and see if I can undock sometime tomorrow to test out this blaster balance. Enjoy the new expansion, and here's to CCP doing more like this one in the future!

-- Rollins