I've been playing Eve continuously for almost a year now. This is the second longest I've ever played a MMO (behind 18 consecutive months of SWG). My corporation has gone from four people to over ten and we recently joined an alliance.

So there we are the other night doing some mining. And as we're moving ore back and forth from the asteroid belt we keep coming across members of our alliance. I casually inspect them as I do everyone, checking what they fly, what their security rating is, and so on.

The first one has a slightly negative rating and a small bounty. Interesting, I think. But thats cool. I continue on. The next one has an even worse security rating and a bigger bounty. Huh, must be together I think and move on.

The third one has a bad security rating and a bounty of nearly 185,000,000 ISK (the currency of Eve). Thats a LOT!!!! I have had at most in my position maybe 60,000,000 ISK before and that was rare. The Exhumer I was in was scarcely worth more than that guy's bounty.

So I mention it to my corp-mates who also express surprise that many of the alliance members that have seen and inspected also had negative ratings and bounties.

Huh, I think to myself. We joined a pirate alliance. Does that mean we're pirates? Arr matey and all that jazz? Paint that ther' parrot on th' side o' me ship, for' ah keel-haul ye!

I haven't blown anyone up yet. And I haven't begun preying on other miners. So perhaps I'm not a pirate afterall. But I haven't been attacked recently so maybe being allied with the pirates is a good thing. A bonus. The silver lining, as it were. They probably blew up and scared off the competition.

Or maybe we sold our soul to the devils. Time will tell. Until then, maybe I'll keep one eye on the rocks, the other peeled for danger, and a loaded gun under my pillow... er, fitted, heated up and ready to fire.

So as I mentioned in my previous post I recently joined up with Lucky Hydra Corp (LHY) part of the SMASH alliance. Arriving out in TDE I didn't realize how interesting things were quickly going to get; here I was in 0.0 with only 10mil ISK, flying a T2 equipped ship that in a fleet would be declared Primary the minute we engaged (Scorpion). What can I say in my eagerness to get back in to the fight my pre-planning wasn't the best. It was after a couple of days that I realized that I needed to get some cash fast.

So whats a guy to do but take advantage of the situation I was in and Rat like I have never ratted before. I headed out to drone space to meet up with a few other LHY members. Getting out there was touch and go as I had to go though some fairly dangerous territory. Arriving out there we spent a few hours ratting for drones. I was surprised by two things first at how relaxing this turned out to be. Second I was surprised at how well my ship was holding up with it's minimal DPS. The Scorpion only has 4 launchers so it's fairly limited in it's DPS (I can't rat BS Spawns in regular 0.0 space as I can't break their tank.). However using T2 Paradise Cruise missiles I was able to generate enough damage that I was able take 1 and 2 BS Spawns in Drone Space. While there would be no way I could have done much solo due to the speed at which my cargo hold filed up. With an group and a nearby POS side we gained enough alloys and salvage to probably build a couple of new battleships.

One plus (and negative) of the night was that I had remembered to bring a salvager with me. For much of the Op I was the only one who could salvage much of my time was spent salvaging. During this time I began to think of how many of us spend hours cleaning up after missions. I couldn't help but think how awesome Salvaging drones would be. Think on it while you would be limited on what you could bring by drone space it's a choice between DPS and efficiency. The balance makes sense as well; you can take up drone space or high slots. While no It seems to be a bit of an over site by CCP after all there are drones for just about everything else why not salvage? I hope this is something that if they aren't considering they will in the future.

While I am able to much with the Scorpion, I was quickly realizing that other then a few situations it was of little use out in 0.0. I needed to start looking toward something else, which brings up the question of what? Do Where do I go, up till now I have primarily concentrated on Mission running and some small gang PvP. Fleet PvP is a new thing to me and I think It will bring me back to Ravens eventually I think. I have been looking at training up Amarr or Gallente ships to help add to my arsenal of ships I can use. Tomorrow is another day and we'll see what it brings...

It's been some time since I last blogged (Blame work ) and I haven't had much time to play EvE Online. After several months out of game I decided to reevaluate where I was with the game and what I wanted to do with my character. I have been working my character towards PvP and PvP ships in general (Currently 2-3 days from flying Interdictors). While Ivy league had/has been evolved in many wars over the last few months the majority have been from small 3-10 man corporations these wars mostly involved camping these corps in their stations. Having had my first taste of 0.0 Ratting and Life early on in EvE when Eve University was part of the Big Blue (TBB ) I decided that it was time to move back out.

With this decision well in hand It came down to a decision of where to go, several options were open to me as a member of IVY. After talking with a friend who was in a Corporation called Lucky Hydra (LHY) who was part of SMASH and playing with some of the corp members I decided to take them up on an offer to join.

So over this weekend it was with some regret I decided to leave IVY and apply to Lucky Hydra at their Headquarters in Earwik (Metropolis). After some fumbling with the interface to get my Corporation right and privileges removed so that I could join.

Not to go on to much of a tangent but this is one area I feel could do with a look by the developers of Eve, the recruitment tools and instructions for joining a corporation felt incomplete and not very user friendly.

So logging on Monday night I found I was a new member of LHY, after some checking I decided to move myself out to TDE4-H (in Geminate) as my main system of Operations in 0.0. arriving there after a 26 Jumps and a Gate transfer I manged to set myself up. Overall I have been impressed by SMASH they seem decently organized and many of the players seem to be top notch. As to LHY they seem to be as good a group of people as any I have gamed with. My first night out I went ratting in UG- however the pickings were slim though I did get some nice drops. Over the course of the last few days we have entered in to a new war with Murder Death Kill (MDK) and it looks like FERGE attacked one of the systems SMASH recently captured from them last night with a 170 ship fleet. With these events it looks like it will be both a busy weekend with lots of combat to go around.

As I get settled over the next few weeks I'll be blogging about my experiences in 0.0. I also hope to help dispell some of the misconception that many have about living in 0.0.

Last week EVE Online announced the new 3 part expansion to Revelations....Revelations II.

No points for originality in naming, but the feature list looks pretty awesome. The press release says (in addition to other stuff):

Revelations II sets the stage for the third chapter of Revelations to be released later this year and will feature enhancements for the most experienced players to the newest. It will introduce major challenges and complexities to the game, enabling players to engage in even more strategic warfare, providing significantly expanded content for exploration and offering more possibilities for sophisticated corporation and alliance management. In addition, it will include enhancements to EVE Online’s core technology to improve the player experience as part of CCP’s ‘Need for Speed’ initiative that addresses server and client performance issues through optimization of existing features and content. As with all previous expansions, CCP offers Revelations II as a free download to subscribers.

In particular, Revelations II enables greater opportunities for strategic operations between fixed structures in space by encouraging siege-type gameplay, enabling attrition warfare, opening up new tactical opportunities for smaller attack groups, improving the economic vitality of outposts and allowing individual outpost services to be attacked with precision strikes. New starbase tactics, for example, will be introduced that allow players to perform localized scanning for ships, jump between starbases owned by the same corporation and quickly bring capital ships into a battlefield – or prevent them from coming in. Players will also have direct command of starbase weapons, allowing them to control individual assets such as turrets and missile batteries.

The new Chapter also gives players more sophisticated tools for managing their corporations and alliances while providing transparency to ensure effective governance. Corporations will be able to take control of their finances using divisional wallets to categorize corporate budgets and a transaction log for each wallet. They will be able to search corporate hangars and remotely manipulate assets. There will also be detailed shareholder reports which list individual member ownership of corporation-issued stock.

For new players, Revelations II includes a fully revamped New Player Experience, which allows them to immerse themselves in the game and acclimate more quickly. The revised tutorial begins directly in space in Revelations II, within a private environment accessible only to the new player. For more seasoned players, the Chapter introduces Level 5 Agents, offering the most challenging Player versus Environment (PvE) encounters ever, designed for capital ships or small gangs, and involving facing major adversaries which require significant firepower to take down.

I have to admit the general attitude towards free expansion content is what keeps EVE installed on my machine. It'll be really fun to see how this works out for non-corp related advances!

It isn't often that an undersized battlecruiser can take on a battleship head-to-head, but last night in Eve I did exactly that. My corporation was engaging in a great battle in a Tier 4 mission and we were facing off against numerous battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers and frigates. Near the end of one of the battles I found myself facing down a lone battleship firing torpedos at me. With newly upgraded shields and skills, I was able to face down the beast and prevail with minimal damage to my shields.

Tier 4 missions are currently the cream of the crop in Eve. They have great bounties, great payouts, and they often require a gang of friends to complete. Last night it took 3 battlecruisers from my corporation to win through the first two stages of the mission. We're holding off on stage 3 for another night (it was 12:30am when we finished stage 2). But so far we've made nearly 4 million ISK in bounties alone, which is quite a good haul.

Tier 4 missions are dangerous and require coordination as well as knowledge of your ship's capabilities and those of the other members of your gang. Voice chat helps, though it isn't required as we were able to make it through using just normal chat.

Wednesday should prove to be quite a good bit of fun as we try to close out the mission and face down a named pirate (worth 850k ISK alone!) and his numerous friends. Well, tats all for now. Back to the good fight!

Last night, Eve felt like work for me. I've been playing Eve for a while now (over a year off and on) and my corporation (all five of us) is working on saving up for a few ships including an Exhumer and a Command Cruiser.

A Command Cruiser is a super fancy ship that lets the pilot coordinate and buff others in the gang (group) while in combat. Its a great ship, but rather pricey (at 300 million ISK).

An Exhumer is an advanced mining ship. See, my corporation does a lot of mining and manufacturing for money (we do combat for missions and fun). So, being able to mine more ore, more quickly, is definitely one of our priorities. An exhumer, however, costs in the 150 million ISK range.

So, with only two of us on last night we ended up with one person mining and one person hauling the ore back to the nearby office (in the neighboring star system). It became a game after a while for me.

See, there's a lot of downtime in Eve, especially when travelling. So, I play in a window and browse the web, chat, and even watch movies. A higher end hauler can actually transport ore more quickly than a mining barge can mine it. So it became a game for me. Could I kill just enough time in-between runs to make it back as the ore available for me to transport was exactly what I can carry.

After a couple hours, I found that I could time it down to the second. Pretty neat! In a boring sort of way. Heh.

But, after a few hours of mining and hauling, we sold the ore and made a tidy 5.5 million ISK apiece. Only a few hundred million more to go... (I definitely enjoy the combat more!) Oh well, back to the mines!

I Forgot to bring this up last week but while at GDC I had the opportunity to talk to Oveur about Titans. I was curious about whether they were happy with the current state now that they have scene players using them more. His response surprised me in that they were not only unhappy with them but were finding that they were disappointed that they seemed to be almost never used in the thick of combat. To this they are talking about several solutions the most interesting of which could lead to the removal of the Doomsday Weapons ability to fire though a Cryosurnal Field. I am not sure where this will lead but looking in from the outside I am curious to see what the future will bring for these expensive ships...

So I recently moved out to Aramachi to run level 4 missions with a new agent at the Aramachi II - Moon 4 - Caldari Navy Testing Facilities. So far I have found my new Raven set up has been able to handle these mission with no major issues, there have been some sticky situations but overall I am very pleased with my set up for mission running. My current set up is (Going off memory here):

High Slots:
6x 'arbalest' cruise launcher I (This is giving me around a 9.2 ROF with my current skills)
2x e500 prototype energy vampire

Medium Slots:
1x xlarge shield booster II
1x Target Painter I
3x Mission Specific Active shield hardeners
1x shield boost amplifier II

Low Slots:
2x power diagnostic system I
3x Ballistic Control System I

As I said I was pretty happy with the setup overall though I need to work on my electronic skills so I can better fit items using more CPU (I often have issues fitting the NOS due to CPU shortages). However currently I am working on my Evasive Maneuvering V so that I can get in to Interceptors for an additional (and slightly cheaper) PvP ship option, so my training once EV V is complete will probably work a bit toward this rather then electronics.

Mean while on the corporate from Ivy League just celebrated their 3rd anniversary (3/15) at training new players. To celebrate this members will be touring around the Eve staging mock battles. You can go and post a Happy Birth day message here Eve Online Forum Post.

Tomorrow is Patch day for the Revelations 1.4 patch so I probably won't be playing much, but look for more later in the week.