Saturday, December 18, 2010

I Got Butchered

Not as active as I used to be. Stellar Dawn forums are sinking fast under a combo of inactive smart people (and, to a lesser extent, Jagex) as well as active stupid people. I've been playing EVE Online.

A few hours before this posting, I joined in some fleet action with my alliance (in EVE, a corporation is a clan. A bunch of corps under one banner is an Alliance). We camped gates (stood at an entrance and shot whatever walked in), waited around (because the guys we were hunting didn't wanna die) and roamed a bit, (because our targets wouldn't fucking sit still).

I caught a rather nice picture of the fleet. If you look closely right in the middle, there is a very small ship the shape of a caltrop amidst the big guys. That's me.



Nice thing about EVE Online is detail.

Like, when you get killed, the your ship fitting is shown in detail with a picture of the ship. Location, exact date and time as well as amount of money lost during that event and amount of damage you took is also saved. Both you and your killer's names are noted, the corporations you served in are written down and even the weapon used against you us remembered. It gets down to the point where what was in my cargo hold is listed, as well as what portion of the cargo was destroyed in the explosion.

Then all of it is instantly posted onto the internet, without input from either side. Right, so I'm Nytoxias and I got shot to bits.

The moment I notified my corp members of my unfortunate demise, they found the page detailing my death before I even undocked from the hangar, now halfway across the galaxy. It's that kind of attention to detail which makes the game so much fun.

Want me to go into part two?

It's called a killmail.

When you are killed, you and the person who dealt the finishing blow each receive a mail which is stored in your character sheet (no, you can't delete it). Your character sheet has your list of kills and losses and these mails can be viewed any time.

The mail looks something like this;


I scrolled down in the mail because the first part was who took part, what they flew and basically everything on the killboard. The cargo manifest and stuff I lost is the more interesting bit. I'm amazed they keep track of it all.

So no. I bear no ill will to my attacker and if you ever read this, I wish you well in your future piracy and newbie harassment attempts.

If this were Runescape, I'd tear my hair out and whine, and whine and whine. But it isn't. Death is all too common in EVE. Second rule of EVE is "Don't fly anything you can't afford to lose." because in EVE, there is no place outside of a station that someone cannot theoretically kill you at. If you're in space, you can potentially be killed. It's just how much risk the attacker is willing to take.

I smiled when I died, not out of defiance or denial, but because it's a nice moment. I got my first Loss killmail. Got podkilled for the first time (that's when he blows your escape pod to bits as well and kills your body for good). In fact, earlier when I bought and fitted that ship, I said into the chat, "I just blew today's income fitting out a ship I'll probably lose anyway." one of the veterans replied with, "Welcome to EVE."

I love EVE Online already.

Also to Lady Dragon, I only got the idea to stalk Jagex with that thread because I saw how quickly posts in it were usually locked. I only realised it when I looked into the recent posts out of curiosity.

Regards, IVIilitarus

2 comments:

  1. Acknowledged.

    I really had only the foggiest idea what EVE was like. Yes, I've watched my father play't in the past (years back), but I didn't really know what's going through his mind as he performs actions. Also, I didn't really pay much attention anywho.

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  2. It's a good game if you like internet spaceships.

    In-game community's quite good, too. The game's difficulty weeds out stupid people. Keep away from the official forums.

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