More Eve on the brain today.  One of the things that is so intriguing and frustrating about the game is the complexity.  Its open ended and very granular.  It seems there are always about a billion additional things you want to know about skill upgrades, ships, fitting them out, etc.

Like many activities, simply having access to all the bits does not an X make.  I can walk into any REI and walk out with gear that would let me go climb Mount Everest (or at least Denali).  Access =/ achievement.  Some how, some where, some way you have to figure out HOW TO DO IT.

Eve is pretty interesting in that its one of the few games that is alternately brutal and forgiving regarding “mistakes.”  Take, for example, a time about a year ago when with less than 1.5 million skill points, my poor eye sight and disengaged brain allowed me to purchase a new clone.

Literally, a “nu” clone.  For the uninitiated, a clone allows you to preserve your skill points in the event you get podded (killed).  The default “alpha” clone gives you protection up to 900k I think.  So when I realized I had crossed that boundary, I decided to get an upgrade.

Neglecting to see the high school geometry logic in the nomenclature, instead of going for a “beta” or “gamma” clone, I somehow decided I needed a “nu”.  Mistaking 25 thousand for 25 MILLION and the skill point rating and price columns put me in my “nu” lifetime clone with a 25 million skill point capacity.

The worst part was that I had just enough money to afford it, and Eve dutifully let me purchase it without batting an eye lash.  I can’t remember now what the price was, but it was most of the ISK I had at the time.  Poof!  Gone forever.  Unforgiving.

On the other hand, buying fittings or even a ship that you can’t use (yet) or don’t need is seldom fatal and often not even inconvenient.  Simply relist the item and you might actually make a profit.  This is a good thing when you think you need something only to find out you can’t equip it, or you can’t equip more than ONE of them on your ship, or there are 50 of them sitting in your corp’s “Free Stuff” hangar, etc.

Which brings me to the real point of the post.  Wilhelm has often remarked about the mighty power of the blogosphere when it comes to Eve.  Turn your blog upside down, shake, ask your Eve-related question and out pops answers.  The good community of Eve players that read blogs will point you in the right direction and offer sagely bits of often hard earned lore.

So in that vein, I’ve got a few questions.

I’m two boxing mining ops right now.  I have a Mammoth hauler on one toon and an Osprey miner on the other.  I’m mostly mining in high sec space.

I’m looking for suggestions on outfitting the Mammoth.  Its filled with hand-me-down fittings right now, but I’m looking for improvement.  I think I’ve basically got a Miner II, a couple of warp core stabilizers, an afterburner, a shield booster or two and a couple of expanded cargo hold Is on it.

Basically, I do tag team jet can mining using the Osprey with three Miner IIs to fill up the Mammoth.  The Mammoth then makes runs to base to dump the load when full.  When waiting for a load, I fire up single mining laser to speed things along.

I don’t plan on fighting anything with the Mammoth, so any suggestions to increase incidental mining ability, hauling capacity, speed or escapability would be appreciated.

Likewise, with the Osprey, I have three Miner IIs and a missile turret for defense.  BUT, ever since I figured out how to use drones effectively, I don’t really use the turret much when rats show up.  Should I swap that out for another Miner II?

Finally, whats a good upgrade for the Osprey as a miner?  I have one toon working his way toward a mining barge, but that’s a way off.  Any ideas will be appreciated!

Well, I answered the call of my dark master yet again.  I succumbed to the call and reupped both of my Eve Online accounts in a moment of weakness.  Okay, maybe it was just boredom.  Eve is one of those games where thinking about playing is almost better than actually playing.  And thinking about playing is not something I’ve been doing a great deal of lately.

I logged in to find that our corp HQ had moved 15 jumps away, so immediately I decided to haul ass literally out to the new digs.  15 jumps isn’t really that bad.  Besides, I needed to spend some time figuring out how to play again anyway.

I eventually got there and managed to get both of my characters out to do a quick bit of mining.  Wilhelm, our intrepid CEO, pointed me at a nearby system that offered reasonably high security and reasonably amounts of Kernite.  Perfect for my tag team Osprey and Hoarder to get their lasers wet again.

I two box on one system running two separate sessions (two accounts) which tends to keep the sessions a bit more “active” than just one session.  Missions I run one at a time.  Poorly.

Eve, god love it, tends to take some time.  Time to skill up, time to travel, time to play the market, time to research just what the hell you might want to do in the game.  Fortunately, much of that time isn’t really in the cockpit looking through the cross hairs.  Much of it is well, technically doing nothing.  Not nothing, but lets say, being less hands on than say a first person shooter.

So in an experiment to see if I could leverage my personal time (and the technological flexibility of Eve), I decided to install Eve on my pathetic work laptop with a view to basically sitting around with Mrs. P, enjoying pleasant conversation, HD cable and still getting something done in Eve.

To my surprise, I actually can run two windowed sessions (classic version) on my wimpy laptop even though I think the trackpad was invented by the devil.  Still, as an initial excursion, I got some skill training queued up and actually got off station to do some kernite mining.

To my surprise, not a single rat showed up as I packed the Hoarder full of kernite.  So, I hauled ore back to base and realized that my Minmatar hauling character had completed enough training to get a Mammoth.  So, a decent price being had only one jump away, I pulled the trigger and picked it up.  I still need to fully fit it out, but I transferred all the fittings off the Hoarder and took it back to base.

Now, apparently I need to pick up a Drake or two to shut Gaff up!

Capped.

Well thank god that’s over.  As I mentioned in my last post, after the WoW instance group decided to drop our self imposed level cap when we all were about 68, no one rocketed to 70.  After I after I dinged 69, I started to feel that old itch.

So, a Saturday morning, a little resource gathering, and maybe just a couple of quests and suddenly I found myself in the grasps of the most dangerous portion of the progress bar– the last 25%.  This is the portion that steals sleep from you.  This is the portion that allows the lawn to not get mowed.

Its just close enough that you can taste it, but just far enough away that it will take longer than your excitement is willing to admit.  So I decided to break on through to the other side and get it over with.

Here’s the magic moment in the Ruins of Farahlon, just north of the Stormspire:

I didn’t check at the time, but at least within a few hours, time played of 21 days, 3 hours, 46 minutes.  Since this toon was rolled just before TBC and has, until recently, only been playing the instances, I guess that’s not too bad.

Along the way I managed to pickup a few stacks of netherbloom, so I was also able to cap out my alchemy as well.

Of course, the first thing I did was to run off and get my flying mount.  So a proud owner of a Snowy Griffon am I.  I must say that flying is an awfully convenient way to travel.  Particularly if you’re gathering.

So now that I’ve arrived… What to do?  The instance group will continue to roll on.  We have quite a few normal 5-mans before we even think about the heroics.  But what in the interim?  Epic Flying Mount?  Go PvP for some welfare Epics?

Reload my two Eve accounts?  I’m open to suggestions as long as they don’t involve pugs.

Boy oh boy do the summer doldrums continue.  Unbearably hot weather and the all consuming fires of hell devouring our fair state of California puts the kaibosh on most fun outdoor activities.  Almost a recipe for an extensive gaming jag– not unlike those short day, long stormy nights of winter that almost force you to game to excess.

Sad to say, I haven’t had that itch much.  More acccurately, I’ve had the itch, just found nothing much to scratch it of late.  When I start digging through the old game box, you know its bad.

I got into the beta of Wizard101 which many have mentioned of late.  I’ve explored a bit, but am loath to say more without having explored more.  Suffice it to say the turn based card combat is interesting and a new twist.

To show you how bad it is, Mrs. P and I picked up a couple of shooters for the CONSOLE and we are anything but console players.  We do enjoy a good run around and shoot em up from time to time, but its like eating popcorn– great as a snack, but unless you’re still in college, hardly a meal.

Summer vacation schedules has kept the WoW group on informal status of late.  With our self imposed level cap removed, the horses, now unleashed, largely remain at the gate.  I’ve mentioned it before, but doing anything outside of an instance in WoW as a group is almost shooting yourself in the foot, groin and then head.  Diligent progress can be made as a group, but it pales in comparison to any focused solo effort.

As I managed to ding 69 and get a good way into the level, I did start to get that horse-to-stable itch.  One. More. Level.  20 chiclets… Its pretty tempting and watching the bar slowly progress from left to right on its (for now) last march has got me in that “lets just get it over” mood though I’ll see if it lasts.

Oh, I guess I should say something about Warhammer and the recent hoo dee doo.  I told you so.  Actually I didn’t, but lacking sufficient insight as to whether the sky has fallen with the announcement that 4 classes are getting cut and 4 out of 6 capital cities wont be in at launch, all I can really comment on is the fact that EA Mythic-no-just-call-me-Mythic has even less cred now.  Assuming launch is actually coming, seems like a crappy interview is probably the last place to Make a Major Announcement.  But then again, they’ve been blathering incessant jibberish for three hype-filled years, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when they developers run out of unobtainium to finish all the features marketing sold to the public over the last few years.  Of course how could the hype about the hype ever live up to the reality about the hype?

Another week or two like this and I think it might be about time to reload Age of Kings.

First Living Legacy and now this:

At least its something relatively noncontroversial about SWG in the news.  Pretty generous offer I’d say, considering that the only SWG account I ever had was a trial account a while back.  I’m not sure the impression left by the trial is enough to re-dl the client to take advantage of the anniversary special, but 30 days is tempting.  And with the dearth of anything interesting out there in MMO-land, maybe just maybe…

If I recall correctly, the trial was 3 days.  Or maybe it was 15 days but I only played three…  Nonetheless, as others have noted, its interesting that SOE seems to have a new found interest in attending to its herd or lost herd as the case may be.  If only they could be trusted…