Railgun Fetishist

I Wrote Dat Shit

2011-12-03T06:23:00.000-08:00

NaNoWriMo is over. I wrote my shitfest of a novel, but it hasn't finished yet.

History textbooks arrived. I'm studying History with the British International Distance College, run by Cambridge University.

Their textbooks arrived and it was a shitton of work.

Also, I played Skyrim.

There's not much I can say about Skyrim, really, just play it an you'll get the idea.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Type-type-type

2011-11-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

Close to finishing. I expect to finish NaNoWriMo on time, even if I cut it a bit close.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Soon Skyrim

2011-11-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

Sooooooon, I'll finish my novel and start Skyrim. I'll probably finish about a week ahead of schedule and be able to enjoy the game. I bought and installed it on the day it released and have somehow fought the urge to just play it.

And not soon like Jagex says it, but soon with a solid estimate on dates, not some bullshit about when it's ready.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Consider this Mess Revived

2011-11-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

Started writing new blog posts and scheduling them on the 13th of November.

Railgun Fetishist is back from its break.

Regards, IVIilitarus

NaNoWriMo is the Shit

2011-11-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month.

1 November to 30 November. 30 days and nights. The goal is to write 50000 words in those 30 days and nights. Take a page from their website on the idea: a novel is just a lengthy work of fiction. So 50000 words is a very, very short novel. Most are closer to 70000, but there's nothing wrong with a fifty.

The goal is to write a 50000 word novel in a month's span, not a good 50000 novel in a month's span. You can write crap. There's a section dedicated to dirty tricks and clean tricks on the forum for reaching the word count on time. As long as you write the damned thing, you're golden.

This goes for me, too. I usually enjoy writing, and this will be a nice bit of fast fun. I ignored it last year, but I'mma do this thing this year. The problem with NaNo this year is it dropped into the middle of the busiest time of my year. Half of NaNoWriMo is in the middle of my exams, I have a writing course to start and I've registered for a History course with Cambridge University (it's actually the British International College, but I say Cambridge because it sounds better). This is not the time to be pounding out a novel.

That's why I picked this time to pound out a novel.

It's not hard.

I wrote this post before posting it, days before, actually. I'm playing around with the post scheduling system. I've got Just over 23000 words as of the 14th of November, so I'm ahead of schedule (barely).

If you haven't started and you're new to this, it's probably too late. Good luck next year.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Still Remembered

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

A year ago, today, man.

I ain't forgotten yet.

Regards, IVIilitarus

This Man

2011-09-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

Is awesome.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Economics Lecture

2011-08-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

I'm busy researching for a project and dug some fun stuff up.

In class, I piped up when someone asked how the value of money is measured. I mentioned that the world uses gold to back up their currencies and cited examples like Fort Knox and various recent events to back that up. Basically, I was pulling stuff outta my ass and cruising on hearsay.

The textbook mentioned a few pages later that South African hadn't used gold backing since the 70's. The teacher's mentions I'm wrong and that lovely girl I have a crush on faints in mock-shock (<3). I made it sound so real, apparently.

Turns out, the truth is much worse.

We've been running on a thing called Fiat money in recent history. Inflation has caused gold backing to become worthless, because $1 to 0.0000000002 ounces of gold is probably a bad idea. Or some other absurd number like that. Only the Swiss have currency with any gold/silver backing. The rest are using Fiat money.

Fiat is Latin, meaning 'let it be done,' so "Fiat lux" means, "Let there be light."

I like to think it means, "Make it so." which it kinda does.

It got it's name because the Fiat money has very little or no backing. It has value because governments say so. The government tells the people to use the money. If foreigners come into play, the government promises that this money has value. They just say, "Let there be money." and it happens.

So when you hear boring people on TV go on and on about 'Confidence in the US dollar dropping,' what they actually mean is, someone realised it was a bad idea to trust people up to their top hats in debt with even more loans and they're getting less confident about those promises of being paid back.

Which basically means that the world's largest nations and greatest leaders, buying, selling and loaning billions per day and occasionally run into debt are dishing out IOUs to each other.

Even EVE Online players did better. When hauling contracts were signed (have my stuff, take it somewhere for me), there is always collateral. If the cargo does not reach its destination, then the delivery guy loses a predetermined portion of money. So even those guys who do pull Number 7 and Number 1 have more to back their promises than our esteemed leaders.

Economics is destroying my faith in the world, rather than showing me that there is enough money and resources in circulation to solve most of our problems.

Regards, IVIilitarus

In a Perfect World

2011-08-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

We'd have more Mass Effect.

Played the first one for old time's sake and the second one to prepare a character for the upcoming third game.

Definitely my favourite RPG series of all time, bar none. It's just so wonderful. I love both of them to bits. Preliminary trailers of the third one show a more actiony, war story approach, which I don't like as much. I prefer the story part more. I love mindless violence, but Mass Effect's story is too deep to be wasted.

Nothing of note going on. Stellar Dawn might as well be dead.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Ricochet!

2011-08-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

Jagex is doing nothing. Being dicks about crappy marketing.

Got into World of Tanks. It's an MMORPG, natch. Combo of third-person shooter, team strategy and RPG. You advance up a tech tree of tanks from weak to strong by throwing experience points earned on battlefields into research to upgrade your vehicle(s). There's a lot of room for customisation and teamwork, but most people don't do the teamwork thing. It's not a Build-Your-Own-Tank game. The combat mechanics are very realistic for something as fun as this, and your equipment upgrades are limited to pre-selected things that can plausibly fit onto your tank.

A good game, but a bit grindy before you hit the nice stuff.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Fail.

2011-07-21T12:13:00.000-07:00

Jagex fucked up.

Mod Craddock posted on the War of Legends forum that the Stellar Dawn Official Forums would be shut down until a time closer to the Beta.

Shitstorm ensued.

A backup forum was launched to house the community, hundreds of threads were backed up, The Combine included. Took a good 12 hours, but Mod Markg finally showed up and clarified it.

The first official Jagex moderator post on the SDOF since last year is a clarification that basically comes down to, "We fucked up and caused a shitstorm. Sorry, guys."

If you want an example of what the main section on a pre-release video game's forum is not supposed to look like, here's one:

Nice.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Maybe They're Just Naturally Dicks

2011-07-20T13:53:00.001-07:00

Got pulled into the SDC Skype the other day. I don't usually talk to the guy who pulled me in and left the other chats he dragged me into.

I was welcomed. Then I left. Was gonna leave anyway, I get pissed by people who pull me into chats I don't care about.

Maybe they're just naturally dicks. With some minor flamewars about how the SDC have egos that rival Dubai's building projects in size and incredible shittyness. Thing is, they're a close community who don't always have a penchant for welcoming the new guys. They post their obligatory welcome and then maybe, when your post count is high enough, you'll see some respect.

Thing is, I ain't part of that close community and after this, I don't want to be. Ren and PoultryChamp are good people. If this is anything to go by, the rest are just dicks who insult each other (which is fine), because they're close and insult new people (which is not fine), because they're dumbasses who can't tell the difference between familiar and unfamiliar.

Here's a protip, motherfucker: If you're gonna open with a 'fun, joking' insult to a newcomer, you either address it as just fucking that really, really soon or don't bother until they've gotten used to your demeanor to each other. I don't care if you poo-poo each other because you're close, but dickishness to the new people ain't right.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Full Circle

2011-07-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

For some real news before the crap starts.

SDCombine now has a blog. SDComBlog. Original, huh? It's posted upon by Combine members, launched by me.

Time to retire from RuneScape.

Not like it's a massive surprise. I've been off for a long time. A week or two of heavy playing and a month on break. That sums up the last half a year or so. I just had to make it official. Tie up some loose ends.

I've been around RuneScape in late 2006 and saw half of it. Through a good bit of playing and at least a year and a half of total inactivity, I've passed the 1900 total. More than 90% of my Quest list and Music list is green. I said I'd finish Eagle's Peak and Observatory, the quests I started on the first day but never finished now, but I'll only do one: Eagle's Peak.

I'll leave Observatory. Eagle's Peak signals the end of my story on RuneScape, but RuneScape carries on. Observatory can be left to the end of RuneScape.

Eagle's Peak is actually the perfect way to end RuneScape for me. Hunter was made my new lowest skill recently, but before I got membership, I was fascinated by Hunter. It was the only skill that, to someone who hadn't attempted it before, had real depth. Slayer was killing things. Agility was running in circles, Herblore was making potions I'd never use, Farming was boring, Thieving was boring etc. Hunter had depth. You'd travel across RuneScape, using camouflage and tools, advanced and primitive to trap an enormous variety of exotic wildlife for resources.

Hunter was the first thing I tried on a member's server. Feldip coast, catching birds. It was the reason I started Eagle's Peak. I found more interesting things to do and it happened to be left to now. Eagle's Peak is perfect for closing the book.

I started RuneScape when I was in the late sixth grade and was clueless about things like efficiency, guides and so on. My first business venture in RuneScape was selling bronze armour sets I smithed in Lumbridge court. I just did what came to mind and never asked for help. The opposite happened when I played EVE recently. I knew about the playerbase, player factions, backstory, ship classes and progressions and dove right in and shot to the top (and fell right back done). Information is valuable to a new player's experience.

My only regret is not Googling 'RuneScape' guides when I was in the sixth grade. That's another reason The Combine switched gears to teaching. I don't want people to waste time like I did.

My last work in RuneScape was materialistic. I got my 3rd-Age Helm and kitted myself out in Armadyl (it was a success, owing to hard work and great friends). Money has always been a focal point in RuneScape. It's to show off, it's for practicality, show but quite like having something nice to strut around in during my retirement.

Killing goblins behind Lumbridge castle before I did the Flap emote for the first time taught me that constant effort leads to constant reward.

Mining ore and smithing iron weapons to sell to NPC merchants in Varrock before I complained about the Grim Reaper's Hood not being black taught me that there are other ways to make money.

Air rune running before I entered a clan chat for the first time taught me to look beyond skills for money making.

Merchanting unidentified herbs when the Obsidian set was still valuable taught me about big money.

Cutting yew logs the first time whips were 1.3 million per taught me that not all money is fast, but it can be simple sometimes and I just have to wait.

Cutting magic logs during an uproar over free trade taught me that things escalate and it really does get better eventually.

Catching sharks whilst internally replacing the words 'High Definition' with 'High Detail' in a whole new world taught me that sometimes, money can be easy and reasonably fast.

Catching Rocktail whilst wielding a Dragonfire Shield and Amulet of Fury just to look good taught me that I can do it.

Selling my valuables as my journey ends and putting together one last outfit for retirement has taught me that effort will be rewarded.

I am the richest, most highly skilled and most fulfilled player in the history of RuneScape and nobody can take that away from me.

My name is IVIilitarus

I am retired.

The Difference Between Goals and Dreams

2011-07-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

One thing I was surprised by was that people on my Friends list I rarely talked to were coming back with wishes for me to stay. I thought there'd be more of a "Okay, good luck out there." than a, "Why? Stay!" thing going on with people I don't speak to.

One that I paid more attention to was a response after I told them I'd achieved all of my dreams, "Just make new ones!"

That's mistaking a goal and a dream. Most of it is up to interpretation, but here's my gist:

Goals dominate.

Goals take up your time and effort. Making that last million to the stupidly overpriced Amulet of Fury. Making the last 12 million to the stupidly overpriced Amulet of Fury. 99 Cooking. 99 Runecrafing. Get it done, cheer, enjoy your reward and move onto the next. That's what goals are all about. If I want a new whip. Or a minigame reward because I need to make myself better, or look cooler. It's a goal. We set them every day. I remember when there was a Goals system in RuneScape just for that. Set a goal to complete a quest, or attain a level and it counted up progress in a percentage. We still have Set Exp Target and Set Level Target for that.

That's a goal. There's nothing wrong with goals. They keep us active.

Now, despite all of that jabber about working hard for your dreams and your dreams taking endless toil, I don't think it's true. I think dreams are a polar opposite of goals.

Dreams annoy.

That's the word. They piss you off about not getting something done. Dreams are always down the line and you inch closer every single day of your life. When you push it front and centre and turn it into your Next Big Thing, it becomes a goal.

Dreams are the things that sit there and slowly crawl toward an end. These happen most often in the beginning. I'd dreamed of a Godsword at one point. I dreamed of 10 million coins. I dreamed of a Third-age armour piece. My goal at the time was money and I fished for it. Then I turned 99 Fishing into a goal and made money on the side, but whenever someone passed me wielding my dreams, I'd do a mental tally of how much longer it would take to get me there and I'd realised it'd be a while and put it aside.

I achieved them all eventually and I was damned happy about it, too. Dreams have more sentimental value that way. Thinking of getting a nice house is not a dream. Sitting down and realising you have a nice house one day and remembering the moments leading up to it is achieving the dream. You'll see your achieved dreams in reflection when it's over. If you cheer in the moments leading up to it and the moment without looking back.

"Shit, that was a lot of work." is a goal.

"Wasn't I thinking of doing that thing 2 years ago? I finally got it down yesterday." is a dream fulfilled.

What I'm trying to say is, all of this is a load of sentimental, subjective bullshit. Goals can become dreams. When I was working my ass off for a whip, it was a goal. When I got that whip and looked back on how envious I was of people with whips back when I when I was a freeplayer, it became dream. The last couple of days have been extra dreamy!

Sure, I sold a lot of them, just to fulfill more. I got my Opulent table, Marble burners and altar in the chapel, full portal room, 7 or so pets. Owned Godswords, God Wars armour, whips, have fought with melee, range and mage at some point. Got ancients. At some point, I was always envious of people who had those things and I've passed them. I'm at Third-age (it's once piece, sure, but how many are there?), Armadyl armour. I strut around in 85 million gear and at one point, I was worth 110.

I earned it all.

That's why I'm retiring. I'm not quitting. When people quit, they do it because they're pissed. Tired of losing, tired of difficulties, challenges, gameplay. That's quitting. I'm retiring. I'm gonna leave this game happy and fulfilled.

The differences between goals and dreams are very, very few and those that exist are clear as South Africa's rivers.

The difference between quitting and retiring is much, much simpler.

Regards, IVIilitarus

RuneScape is Good

2011-07-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

Playing RuneScape extremely hard for the last few days has shown me something that reading blogs or popping in once a week can never show me;

RuneScape is slightly better than when I left it.

Ambient sounds are my favourite effect. I always play with sound on. Some of the updates have been great. I see a bright future ahead of RuneScape, a tarnished one, but still bright.

I've gained far more levels than I expected. Originally, I would have thought it good to get a 1900 total.

I am now at 1912.

70 Crafting and 70 Herblore were done in half the time I thought they'd take. 70 Smithing took 2 days out of an expected 4. I took to Soul Wars and dominated the matches to obtain 4 levels of Magic in, incredibly, a single evening.

The beginning of this post mentions a bright, but tarnished future for RuneScape. Here's why:

In my previous post, I mentioned I sold my Godsword. Nothing special there. I found a way to spend that money I got, too. I split it between 3 of my best friends I've ever met on RuneScape. 2 million per person.

It was meaningful to me, because a Godsword was for a long time, a distant dream of mine. I have nothing against the fact that I paid 20 million for it and only got 6 million in return. That's fine. It was a dream, not an investment. And when I gave my friends the money, I didn't give money to them. One had 70+ in every skill. The other was a level 130 something on the way to 99 Herblore. The other marched around every day in Armadyl armour.

It wasn't charity, it was a sentiment. In essence, I had given them each a small part of my dreams and they were grateful. All of them asked if I was sure I wanted to do this. I hit 'Accept Trade' first every time and they waited to make sure it was okay. They're far better people than me, all of them, in that regard. 2 of them promised to, "never spend your dreams". I nudged them on. Told them to buy something in case of an emergency, or blow it off on a friend.

That's a pretty nice story, if you ask me.

Thing is, I'm typing this post in between waiting for my Fruit Bat's Special Move bar to recharge so I can use Fruitfall. Papayas = money.

Why would I need money anymore? I have a Third-age full helmet. I have Armadyl clothing. I got my Staff of Light and still have over 8 million to spare. It's like parking a Bugatti in front of a soup kitchen and telling the worker there you haven't eaten for 2 days.

It's because I have a dream. I have one last dream to fulfill before I can retire happily.

I don't have enough time.

I bought a Third-age helm, an Armadyl Chestplate. I have everything except one item to complete my final outfit. I need an Armadyl Chainskirt. Not cheap at 14 million, but considering the numbers I've been dropping in the last couple of days, it's pocket change. Problem is, after I gave my Godsword returns away, I only had 6 million left. I sold as much as possible and it's now up to 5.5 million. I have a week left before I consider RuneScape over. I doubt I can pull it off.

And that's why today, I feel like the worst person in the world when I asked the first of those friends to return 2 million. The other 2 aren't online. It's a sick metaphor. They've helped reach my dreams and I gave them a share of those dreams. Now I have to ask for it back, to achieve one final dream.

I'm up to 7.5 million, now. I can ask one more for 9.5, another for 11.5. The rest I'll do myself. I'm closing in, now. The papayas help.

Worst part is, if the damage to RuneScape's future had been stopped, I wouldn't be in this mess. I'd be well on my way to a happy retirement by now. Normally, I'd catch Rocktails for money. Fishing got me where I am today. Before sudden deflation, I was worth over 110 million at a certain point. It's dropped to little above 75, but it's a lot and fishing got me there. The problem is, 25 Rocktails into my planned 3500, I did a price check out of curiosity. Just to see if I would be pulling in 50k or 45k per 25 fish.

It turns out, it was closer to 35k.

I pay attention. Since playing more, I've seen the complaints about the Botstorm (I'm coining that phrase, bitch) that's overtaken RuneScape after free trade returns. I've seen them, too. Most of the time, I see players going, "Anyone who's not a botter wanna chat?" at resource areas. The bots are just water in a lake, now. They're part of life. In the strictest terms, they're not a problem for us. We don't starve. Sure, prices drop a bit, but we can just take the extra week or two to get our next partyhat.

I don't have an extra week or two.

Rocktails managed to drop over %25 in the time since Free Trade returned. There are so many bots out there, that they managed to push the price of a vital commodity down by 25% when it was once stable. Imagine if your fuel prices dropped %25 in the span of 5 months and continued dropping from there because of oversupply. Imagine how much more supply it must take.

And that's why I'm taking my chances with papayas, rather than go back to the caves for Rocktail. It might not be worth it. One of the best foods in RuneScape, that takes over 95 in a skill to catch, catches at less than 200 per hour and is situated in a cave of level 120 monsters isn't even worth catching anymore.

Fruit bat's gone. 180k in 45 minutes. Very, very slightly ahead of 170k in an hour at Rocktails.

One final dream.

I've been wearing my helmet non-stop. I deserve the ego-boost; the break. I'm effectively retired. I can walk around and show off. I've been drawing a lot of beggars, too. They can't be bothered to make money, but they can identify valuable equipment in a large crowd. One even came up to me and asked me for 100k in a Soul Wars match.

My response is the same, "Go work your ass off like I did. Maybe you'll get money that way."

I'm going to work my ass off, like I used to. Maybe I'll get money that way.

Years of work have culminated in this last week.

Botters are ruining it.

Shower.

Sleep.

Thought.

Regards, IVIilitarus

It Ends Here

2011-07-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

That is cool.

Too bad I won't be around to see it.

I've got my last month of membership lined up. I'll last just long enough to test out Clan Citadels, maybe. The plan is to get the 1900 total (more), 70 Herblore and 70 Crafting. Both are already at 67 and I've brought the materials for the rest. Sold the Dragon Claws and Godsword. Will use the money somehow, eventually.

The only thing I really have to do before membership ends is Eagle's Peak and Observatory. Both were quests I started on the first day of my RuneScape membership and despite their ease, I've completed neither. It's a strange feeling, that I'll be doing the same thing on my last day as I did on my first day years ago.

It's been a good run, but there's just nothing left on RuneScape for me.

Regards, IVIilitarus

New Tag

2011-07-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

It reads 'Jagex Rocks'.

Don't expect a lotta posts with that tag.

Saw the behind the scenes for July. Saw the Clan Citadel. I'm going to get one last month of membership on RuneScape. It died for a bit, but I'll come back to change my name back, check out the Citadels, build our own, get that 1900 Total and leave RuneScape. Forever. The 'About Me' column in my blog says I'm a bitter RuneScape veteran, and that implies I'm also retired, so I need to retire.

Also fun, I got some screenshots of a very, very productive strategy meeting between myself and another Combine member, we were planning out the Reform and rank structure, mostly.

Well, I think it was productive.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Like, Why?

2011-06-28T14:07:00.000-07:00

Why does writer's block happen?

I mean, I had a stroke of genius. And nearly had a stroke, too, but mostly the genius, not the fatal kind. I'd suddenly plotted out the entire story end-to-end. I knew exactly where the characters would go, how the story ends, what happens to who. I even had a half other chapters plotted out, down to who would be doing what.

So why is it an hour after all of that, I slam into a wall and suddenly, can't put a single word down? I know exactly what's supposed to happen, so how can it all stop now? Moros' writer's block was justifiable. I had no story, I just had explosions and violence, but this time, I've got something that might work and I've still been screwed over.

Well, that felt better. Time to write.

Regards, IVIilitarus

I Made an Oopsie

2011-06-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

I was reading the Elements of Style by Some Guy.

It's an awesome book.

Until I realise that I screwed something up the book tells me not to.

"Formerly, science was taught by the textbook method, while now the laboratory method is employed."

"Formerly, science was taught by the textbook method; now it is taught by the laboratory method."

"The left-hand version gives the impression that the writer is undecided or timid; he seems unable or afraid to choose one form of expression and hold to it. The right-hand version shows that the writer has at least made his choice and abided by it."

Well, damn. I do it all the time.

I like to pretend I'm demonstrating my impressive vocabulary. I often flat-out refuse to use the same words in one sentence, because I know there's another. This doesn't lead to purple prose, I make sure the writing is varied, but I need to lessen it.

There's probably a lot more I got wrong.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Where Men Fear to Tread

2011-06-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

70 Dungeoneering. Might push for 85 for Frost Dragons, might realise that when Jagex thought they had an effective system of bot-killing, they lied through their teeth/got screwed over. I'm just happy for the 70. Slayer next.

Brings the total to 1892. No Champion scroll in sight yet. I switched over to whip from Dragon darts against those skeletons, works faster.

Regards, IVIilitarus

That Which Does Not Kill Me...

2011-06-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

Getting into RuneScape isn't as painful as you'd think, but there was pain.

3 or 4 Crafting levels set me back quite a bit. I miscalculated and turned out to be making a 50% loss instead of a 50% profit like I thought. 1.5 million I'll never see again.

I caught a few Dungeoneering levels and I'm well on my way to 70. 2 levels to go. I got a Slayer level, and an Agility level just because I can.

All of this puts me at 1890, which is shockingly speedier than I'd expected to reach my 1900 Total level goal.

I am now buying off some Dragon Darts and I'm heading to the Lumbridge Catacombs.

The Skeletons down there drop Champion's Scrolls.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Stupid Fish

2011-06-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

I've got a month offa school. Look's nice. Got a bit of RuneScape on, that's something I haven't done in months.

I found out the economy on RuneScape fell apart whilst I wasn't looking. Bandos Godswords somehow made it to 6.4 million. It's really nice for people who want to buy one, but I'm one of those bastards who already had one and can no longer show off because it's worthless! Still have the Armadyl Armour, Dragonfire Shield and Dragon Claws to back up my ego, but still.

Did what I haven't done in a long time. Caught some Rocktail. 250? It's a start. I've got enough living minerals stocked up to be worth 4 million in Rocktail once caught and sold. At least the Rocktail prices didn't die. Cooked shark was at 443 and my order bought at 300 each. Strange.

The Stellar Dawn website's first birthday is coming up on the 14th of July and there is a RuneScape event being held to commemorate it, on the 16th. It's only been about half a year since we've gotten anything official from Jagex.

I'mma set a goal for myself. 18 levels on RuneScape. Any levels. I'm shockingly close to a 1900 total level and can probably push most of it out by the time the month is past. I don't have anything else to do. Battlefield 2142 is getting little, and I can only shoot so many people before it gets boring.

This also means I can complete a few of those longstanding goals of mine, like 70 Slayer and 70 Dungeoneering. These are some of the lower skills I have and could use a boost. I won't even look at Runecrafting because I hate it so much.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Good Trolls

2011-06-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Fun story.

Yesterday, a troll made a few accounts and feigned a rather convincing roleplay on the SDOF, very similar to the type the J Mods used, capitalising on the activity spike. The thread reached over 400 posts in less than 48 hours. It was then confirmed fake and hidden.

What's notable here is the fact that a determined troll can cause that level of enthusiasm. Most players were skeptical, but hopeful. Among his first actions, the troll opened communications with a similar protocol to the ones used to shut them down, but with one crucial flaw: Mod ComNet, a Jagex Moderator made the last post. This person wasn't a J Mod.

Then another account was used to spam the threads in the Headquarters section.

Several characters were used in the main thread, short conversations were held, the group went completely nuts.

I responded with complete skepticism and negativity, as is standard. When he showed up on the Combine's thread, I promptly told him to, "get the fuck off of my thread."

Respect to the guy who pulled this.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Time Waster

2011-06-12T08:41:00.000-07:00

I played Sins of a Solar Empire over the weekend.

SoaSE had 2 expansions stuck to the original and I grabbed both. I heard a new expansion was coming out sometime in a few months and it would include massive ships called Titans. It's already got starbases. Feels too much like EVE for me to ignore.

In short, SoaSE is a very, very big RTS in SPACE! The developers tagged it as a RT4X game, but it doesn't have enough 4X elements to really qualify. It's much more about fleetbuilding and genocide.

Incredibly, the game is very ,very long. I played a game with/against 9 AIs and it took 9 hours to finish on Normal difficulty. The games are hellishly long, owing to the scale and some realism. It's a magnificent time waster.

Regards, IVIilitarus

You Shall not Parse!

2011-06-08T03:00:00.001-07:00

No meaning in the title. I just like the pun.

Activity on Stellar Dawn is spiking. That's a problem, considering that an off-hand comment in an interview can cause this. Pre-Beta forum activity is supposed to remain steady and increase over time, not spike at intervals. Things only spike after a low average. Low forum activity average screams of incompetent marketing. A spike means it's likely to drop back to original levels.

EVE Online is fun. Lasers are win and stuff. I got bored of Moros and needed something with less violence (but not lacking violence) and more thought to get the noodle working.

Regards, IVIilitarus

inb4alpha

2011-05-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

So some employee at Jagex did an interview and let it slip that Stellar Dawn was now in the internal alpha-testing phase.

http://www.thealistdaily.com/news/feature-jagex-finds-a-hero/

They visiting moderators will either keep it quiet or vehemently deny it and point to The Vaunted Plan again. (Hint: The latter ain't worth shit.)

My return-to-EVE plan is coming along nicely and if Stellar Dawn doesn't get anything really, really soon, I'm hitting EVE Online seriously. I miss that Rattlesnake I lost a whole lot and Jagex isn't exactly doing much.

One thing I always find laughable is when employees make excuses like, "Less time spent chatting to you means more time in the office."

This gets particularly impressive when it comes from a community team member. Not talking Jagex, though they've done this before. Just in general. As the community manager, your paycheck rests on sitting at your comfy chair in the office and typing messages to the players. It's not hard to keep a window open on the side to tell people that the game is in progress and you're at your desk, working on it.

Better yet, you're the only link between community and designers, which means it's up to you to take into consideration the last 7 months or so of complaints about your company doing jack shit to someone who cares and making sure they realise that they're making a negative impact on people. Negative impact on people, not a substantial amount of customers. The few dozen or so of us complaining don't matter on the income graphs, but it isn't that hard to have enough empathy to realise that your plan sucks ass.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Escalation

2011-05-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6855533/3/Moros

http://www.stellardawncentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17435

Regards, IVIilitarus

Big, Stupid Jellyfish

2011-05-22T11:43:00.000-07:00

Battlefield 2142 is great, if it weren't trying to kill me through lag. My average ping on an international server is 300. 280 on a good day. That is one on a long list of Very, Very Bad Things. The last South African server shut down over a year ago. They've go servers for every other Battlefield except 2142. Which really sucks.

I played anywhere. On international servers, I risked getting kicked by a bastard admin every time they saw I had a ping of 300. Does the fact that I'm doing better than half the people with double digit pings mean anything to you, fuckwad?

I racked up a few rather nice awards 8 or 9 Collector's Pins for killing 8 people with a knife in one round (knifing server). A silver and bronze star, for coming in second and third place on the scoreboard in a round, respectively. Nice thing about 2142's rewards is that many can be awarded multiple times. No achievements here, just unlockable equipment and shiny awards.

Also today, I got into EVE again. Started a Minmatar character. It got boring real quick. Minmatar ships are just ugly rustbuckets to me, despite their PvP prowess. My serious character will be Gallentean.

Also got screenies from my 2142 happy fun time. The scoreboard was me against the AI, with 49 kills and 66 total points in a single life, before dying. There's one of a conversation I caught on the knifing server (top left corner) and the last is a coupla giant robots (battlwalkers, for the uptight).

Regards, IVIilitarus

I Don't Give a Shit About Either of You

2011-05-18T12:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.stellardawncentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17474

http://services.stellardawn.com/m=forum_fo/c=CNYru3Kscpg/forums.ws?86,87,658,97268

Really, I just want my game.

Exams are coming up. I'm probably gonna go get back into EVE Online. The friend I gave my stuff and money to helped me work out a plan. The new Buddy System lets the 21 day invite be redeemed with a PLEX to the inviter. She'll invite me for a 21 Day trial. At the end of the trial, I'll use the PLEX she is given to add 30 Days. Then she'll sell all of my old stuff and send most of the money over, enough for a startup fund and another PLEX. That's 81 days in total, should be enough to get me started.

Which might work, if I hadn't suddenly gotten into Battlefield 2142. It was one of the first 5 video games I ever brought, and my first real FPS. I was about 13 at the time, and had no clue how to work the account, registration, patching and multiplayer element. In fact, the singleplayer was above me, too because I still had my old computer which couldn't even run the game. It collected dust for years and I got my new PC last year, so I installed it, but still had capped internet, so the multiplayer and patching. Battlefield singleplayer is notoriously shitty, with no more than 16 players per map and most of the maps locked.

Exams are coming up.

Battlefield 2142 is coming up.

This can't end well.

Regards, IVIilitarus

I Miss EVE Online

2011-05-14T14:44:00.000-07:00

I really, really do. Was a great game. Is a great game. Can't afford to go back on a nonexistent salary.

Fallout: New Vegas is going strong. Sniper did an awesome job. Got a new character and I'm busy chopping things with a big ol' axe.

I came to what I think is the best solution to the Combine Reform. (I'm the leader, I decide what's best.) I dropped it on them and told them I didn't feel like doing it anymore. 3 volunteers so far. Gonna see where this goes, I want to be a passive observer.

Also, I got picked for the second round of beta testers for 8Realms. I checked the forums after the first round and they were deader than Stellar Dawn's pre-beta forum (I'm coining that phrase).

Playing it for a bit. It's nothing special so far.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Great Games Revisited 'n' Stuff

2011-05-08T06:48:00.000-07:00

I don't feel like writing a long, winded bitching post today, so I'll keep it short; break from school is over. Minecraft was a lot of fun, and I'm looking into doing more, just need a bit of extra time. Exams are an route, ain't that a kick in the head?

Got some distance in Fallout: New Vegas. Very, very good game. Lots of fun stuff to do and quests to complete. Second chapter of Moros is coming along nicely. I really took my sweet time with that one, future chapters will be quicker. Probably. Maybe.

The Combine reform is pretty much dead on account of one person not doing their job: Me. I'm considering relegating the remains of the reform to everyone else. No input from me. They work between themselves to do what's left to do and present it to me for editing and review. This is to:

A. Kick their asses into gear.
B. Make them realise that I won't be here forever, and they better be able to work on their own if they want the Combine to get anywhere.
C. Make them realise I am fucking lazy and I'm the leader. If I don't want to do something, I don't have to and they're stuck picking up the slack in my stead.

Jagex is being stupid about their marketing for Stellar Dawn, which hasn't really changed in the last 5 months or so. In fact, their marketing strategy for Stellar Dawn is dumber than a particularly unintelligent sack of hammers.

Whoops. I said I wasn't gonna write a bitching post.

Well, it was only 25% bitching, right?

Regards, IVIilitarus

I Always Wanted to be a Jedi

2011-05-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

I tucked into Knights of the Old Republic 2 recently, because I really, really wanted to see what happens a few years after KotOR, which I'd bought and played years ago.

Thing I've noticed is that KotOR 2 is a lot like KotOR, but better in every way. It's the same, but better. I dunno how they pulled it off. The missions and characters are more interesting. The story is more engaging. It intertwines perfectly. The first game was my first RPG and awesome, and this one is just whoa.

However, Kreia is a sanctimonious bitch.

This also got me interested in Star Wars: The Old Republic. For those of you living under a rock or just not interested in the latest gaming news, The Old Republic is an upcoming MMORPG set a few years after KotOR 2. All part of that era. Once done with the game, I went over to The Old Republic's website to find some more stuff about it.

So the bitching starts here. When I got there and began staring in awe at how well updated the website was and how active and large the community is, I realised that Jagex is so terrible at marketing MMORPGs, that they've dulled me to good MMORPG marketing. I got the same feeling I got from Empire at War before release, of seeing a very filled website full of detail on game mechanics, classes, units, story and location. I was stunned, and then realised that this is what a pre-release site for a game should look like. Too many months spent on Stellar Dawn means I've forgotten just what a good game looked like.

I still have no idea why Jagex would do this to their game. They're a company running games on an obscure platform without the gigantic budget Bioware has, so that means they should be doing everything they can to build support for their game. Bioware doesn't have to do a thing. It's Star Wars and it's Bioware. Those 2 things alone would make me buy it. Jagex is doing a homebrewed universe with half the recognition and they're doing jack shit to promote their big title.

It's understandable that they wouldn't care about a few of their players like me complaining before release. They'll get enough publicity to get it going even if the people on the forums now dropped dead. What I don't understand is why they're going to jeopardise their into game's future for their vaunted, bullshit 'Plan'. The moderators think its funny when they say the first rule of the plan is, 'Do not talk about the plan.' They haven't been sitting around for years, waiting for something that's already died once.

Is it the company's execs who are too stupid to market what could be a great title? Does player support have a good reason for sitting on their collective ass? The employees aren't allowed to discuss their game on their own website. Recently, the BETA application system saw downtime and was changed slightly and threads started cropping up about it. When a bug in the system, followed by one extra field you're supposed to fill in a 3 field application causes a spike in activity, you know something's wrong with your game.

Stellar Dawn is slated for a 2011 release. No details given.

The Old Republic is slated for a 2011 release. No details given.

Compare these two websites:

http://www.stellardawn.com/

http://www.swtor.com/

And tell me which upcoming sci-fi MMORPG is more likely to make their 2011 release date.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Bohemian Rhapsody Redux

2011-04-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

Regards, IVIilitarus

The First Night is the Hardest

2011-04-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

Well, Jagex is being a stubborn ass as they've been for the last 5 or so months. Best part is, they don't care. When Stellar Dawn is released, they can bank on the fact that their release will catch tens of thousands of players regardless of the few hundred they disappointed for months before release.

I found something else.

I found Minecraft.

Let's recap. If you spend a lot of time on the internet, you'll have heard of Minecraft recently. It's a strange game. I've played the sort before, but Minecraft might be the best.

Here's how it works in the singleplayer mode: You're alone in a randomly generated world. You craft tools from raw materials and use those tools to improve harvesting techniques. The world is build like lego, with blocks being stacked up. Some blocks have different effects and the core of the game is in the title; Mining and Crafting.

Mining is the main source of raw materials for all of your building projects. Crafting turns materials into new tools, useful items or blocks you can use to build.

The ingenuity of Minecraft is the same as that of Dwarf Fortress, anther game with shitty graphics which drops you on a randomly generated world to gather materials and exploit game mechanics.

There is a physics engine. There are a few items with reasonably realistic effects. There's no end or objective in sight.

So that leaves it to the players to make their own fun, given materials and limitations.

Some pretty awesome stuff comes up.

But the thing is, those creations were done by people who knew what they were doing. I started today, and I was barely able to grapple with the concept of 'the monsters come out at night and you should build a fucking shelter'. I did what every first timer in Minecraft does: build a house. Once you get your first permanent shelter up in Minecraft, the world really becomes yours. You're not just cowering in terror when night falls, you're pulling back to your base of operations for a good night's rest. That's how it works.

Me being a decadent brat, I decided to...opulentify my shelter a bit. The process will be shown below.

Bear in mind that I kept generating random maps until I found one that would suit me, with all the necessary resources nearby, rather than just taking the first one I got, so I was able to get started on a nice hilltop spot surrounded by potential resource sites.

My house is the main attraction. I set up a small grove of trees from which to harvest the very important wood resource. There was a mountain in the background which I plan to explore later on. The entire house was built from a new game in 2.5 hours, but I had the entire afternoon to play and get used to the system, so this was done with a day's worth of experience.

This was my shelter for the first night. The title of this blog post is relevant, and I had too little time and tools to build a permanent shelter, so I carved out a cave and camped it there for the evening.

"Go away, this is my hiding spot."

Before I dug into a cave for the night, I built this spire real quick, marking the spot where my house would be. I am also standing on where the tree grove will eventually be. You are now seeing it on the morning after my cave experience.

This is the beginnings of the grove, with saplings planted, torches to provide light and one tree fully grown. I'm not sure about growth rates, they seem semi-random.

Here's a picture of the grove, with more trees grown. The pig is part of the local wildlife which you can use for additional resources such as milk or wool. Eating is not essential, but it is the main way of healing.

That is a mountain in the distance I intend to explore when I'm ready.

Here's the outside of the earliest version of my house. All wood, torches for light. Light in this game plays a major role because enemies cannot spawn in lit areas. If my house were unlit and nightfall came, the enemies would spawn in my house.

This is the inside of the house I finished in 2 game days, which is about 20 minutes of work. Everything is hand made. The wood was chopped with axes I made, the torches were made with charcoal and sticks made from the wood I chopped. The wood formed the walls etc.

Whilst mining for resources, I struck gold, or rather, iron. The iron ore in this game is actually reasonably uncommon and I was lucky to have enough to make a bucket to carry liquids. Buckets in this game let you carry milk, water or lava. Yeah. You heard me. In a game where eating isn't needed for survival, they let you carry milk, whats up with that?

So the first real renovation a new player usually makes is to turn their wooden house to stone. This is to fireproof it. I'll only be doing the first floor, since the lava flood probably won't be big enough to reach the second. Probably.
I started from the bottom and let my house levitate for a bit while I filled the stone in.

There's a look at the mountain from inside, as I was ripping out wood in favour of stone.

I'd just got in the door when the monsters started spawning, but did catch that rather pretty picture.

This would be the house, with windows and ground floor completely stoned (hah).

My 2 furnaces, one producing more glass and a view of the mountain again.

This is my house, when I was finished for the day. It's gotten a bit bigger. Yes, that's a waterfall and 2 balconies on 2 different floors. I got carried away. It's still not finished.

That's the waterfall and the pool. You can see a bit of the incomplete spiral staircase that's still gonna go further.

A closeup of the spiral staircase.

So, yeah.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Cool But Overlooked

2011-04-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

Activity on the Stellar Dawn got corpsified again.

So, I wound up digging through all of my old games and found Rise of Legends. Very good game. Wonderfully imagined world, lots of cool stuff, nice blend of magic vs technology and magic + technology vs better technology. Too bad it got such a lukewarm reception when it was released.

Totally worth a look, if you're into real-time strategy with a hint of city building.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Oh, I Forgot You Existed

2011-04-21T16:14:00.000-07:00

I've totally got a 10 day break from school. It's significant to me. >.>

I also got a mic, so I'm actually present on Skype and stuff these days. And I ain't as useless on Team Fortress 2 anymore.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Activity on the SDOF is Like Summer Rain

2011-04-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

Sporadic and unpredictable.

At least there's no shortage of stupid people anywhere on the internet.

Clan Camp got released. Launched The Combine RSB on RuneScape. Activity died just in time to see the CRB become useless.

I quite like the emblem, though. Used the Combine colours. Surprisingly pretty.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Existential Questions

2011-04-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I made a calendar fuckup.

Turns out, the Clan Camp would be released the Tuesday in 3 days, not the Tuesday in 10 days like I'd thought.

Which is kinda awesome.

I'm gonna need those 4 players or so to help me start it off, though. Not sure if I need them friendlisted, or on the same world or even at the location. Hard to tell.

I want to use RuneScape's system as a testbed for how much I need to adapt the Combine's leadership and advancement systems for use in Stellar Dawn, as RuneScape's system is likely to be very similiar and almost identical in the beginning of Stellar Dawn. The Combine needs the complex system of specialisation and independence from a leader's orders because I don't trust myself enough to be there when I'm always needed, so I need everyone to pull their weight.

Another bit of nostalgia that hit me was whilst going through Marlaine's blog links, I found Tim's (one of the major bloggers back in the day) and through the links in Tim's blog, I found Mat's (former clan mate) blog. And I found the piece below.

Thing a lot of the bloggers (including me) don't realise when they leave a blog inactive or quit it completely is how many of their readers have just lot out. Every blog gets a readership. You don't write successfully because you're an attention whore (like me), you write because you love it. I really envy people like Marlaine, who almost never seem to take breaks from this sort of thing. The kind who outlast their readers.

I really, really miss those days, now that I think about it.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Hard Work is Happy Work

2011-04-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

Math sucks.

Let this kid explain it to you.

Regards, IVIilitarus

In Spite of Consequence

2011-04-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

Things are looking up. The Clan Camp will finally give all of those bored Combine members a little something on RuneScape a little something to do in the wait leading up to Stellar Dawn. If Stellar Dawn's clan support is anywhere near as good as RuneScape's is advertised, I'll be satisfied, as long as they include a good system of war and conflict, not just hiscores, but real, high-stakes warfare.

Combine's making some or other progress. We've passed the 1900 post mark on our thread and the logo is sort of moving forward. Still wondering about media organisation and various other junk like that.

Today's Livid Farm update also brought along the Clan Camp in its first form; the camp is now under construction, with trees being felled and a Guard Captain and Sergeant standing in front of a pile of supplies.

Guess it'll be done, despite their lack of effort by the 12th, anyway. I'm gonna need a few active Combine members around for release. The Guard Captain said you need 5 friends to form a clan.

Also, whilst hammering out a very, very long comment on one of Marlaine's recent blog posts, I realised that with the release of the new clan Vexillum and if it is wearable on the back or cape slot, I could theoretically have 3 banners out at one time; my Banner Carrier, the Vexillum and a standard PoH banner wielded in the weapon arm.

Regards, IVIilitarus

A Thing of Beauty

2011-04-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Stellar Dawn Official Forums have seen a boost in activity lately. Which is great news for me, because that means The Combine's catching some activity. New logo's progressing fine and I uploaded a list of possible colour schemes for everyone to argue over. It's pretty much been decided that upward pointy thingy + star + motto + translation of motto is going to be our new logo. Just need to work out the design.

School starts tomorrow. So expect more bitching and fewer blog posts.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Incoming!

2011-04-02T15:11:00.001-07:00

Short version is, Jagex is being a collected buncha morons about their perceived ability to market their games, so I'm hoping to clobber together some Combine members on RuneScape for a bit of fun, and to test out the new clan system.

In preparation for the upcoming Clan Camp, I've registered the Combine on Runehead and launched a Combine RuneScape Branch.

Following that, I put together a new logo and pretentious Latin motto for the Combine. The first picture was just me playing around with new brushes in Photoshop. The second is pretty much our new logo.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Jagex Trolls

2011-04-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Here's the full transcript of Jagex' fake, April Fool's Behind the Scenes. The fake was removed and the real one was posted in the afternoon.

"April has always been an unpredictable month, particularly in the United Kingdom, with sunlight shifting to rain and then back again in a matter of minutes. It seems only suitable, then, that April takes an unpredictable turn with our first rhythm action music game, unlikely Hunter targets, an update to a popular but rather old quest, and some bloodthirsty familiars.

TzHaar Hero:

The TzHaar, self-proclaimed Monsters of Rock, will be taking the natural next step from theatre to rock ‘n’ roll in our latest distraction and diversion! Smith a rune ‘axe’ in the lava forge, string it with the beard-hair of an imcando dwarf, and perform some fiery licks with TzTok-El-Slash! Activate TzHaar Power to earn extra points and play solos so hot even carbonite couldn’t freeze them!

The latest diversion takes a similar form to the circus, allowing you to ‘rock around the clock’ once a week and earn a batch of Agility, Magic, Prayer and Slayer XP. You will need to have completed TokTz-Ket-Dill to play this diversion. Tracklisting includes Magma Mae, Is This The Way To Armadillo?, Gielinor Rigby, Great Capes of Fire and I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do Jad).

Werewolf and Vampire Hunting:

We have two Van Helpings of Hunter updates this month, as we take the Hunter skill into Morytania. These updates will be high level (78 and 86 Hunter respectively) but will deliver rewards that make you the very pinnacle of fashion.

Wander about Morytania and you’ll find that the ghouls have twisted swamp reeds into shapes that look remarkably like kennels. Using a ‘moon on a stick’ item, you’ll be able to lure werewolves into the kennel traps and leave them there until they get tired of struggling. Domesticate them and you will be able to carry them in your bag and dress them in a selection of hats. Canifis? Yes you can!

It’s possible to spot the twinkling of vampires in the underbrush of Morytania this month. Lure them out with longing looks and a tin of swamp gel and you’ll be able to catch them before they skulk away. Train these beasts to be used in PvP combat, activate their combat buff(y)s and watch them twi-fight from all three corners of the love triangle. Team Drakan!

Gertrude’s Cataclysm:

At RuneScape, we’re asked one question more than any other: what was Gertrude’s cat doing in the Lumber Yard in the Gertrude’s Cat quest? Well, ask no more! Gertrude’s cat will be producing a litter so big that it literally topples buildings and lays waste to Varrock in this month’s quest! Your Summoning and Hunter skills will be called into question as you gather the cats by their neck and tempt them back to Gertrude’s house with doogle leaves.

This cat-based apocalypse also allows us to rethink the starting experience of RuneScape, adding an extra degree of danger and excitement to the tutorial and first hours of gameplay. Sir Vant will now face a giant cat called Deathpaw, while the Blood Pact will be revamped to become Tigerblood Pact. You will also find that, rather than a flashing hint arrow, a ball of string will lead you from Task to Task. Don’t want to see so many cats? Activate your cat filter.

Little Pwny Unicorns:

This month we introduce little pwny unicorns, summoning familiars that are as deadly as they are wuvverly. High level summoners will be able to create these adorable little unicorns in the magical realm of Sparklesky, left of Taverley, using a mixture of sugar charms, spice shards and bloody unicorn parts.

Wrap your eyes around these: Cherryboom (level 93 Summoning) is a sweet little brown unicorn that packs an explosive smile and eyelashes that can cut through corporeal beasts. Pinky Power (level 99 Summoning) is pink, has wings – making it a pegacorn - and can decapitate a clan with one swish of its sharpened sequin tail.

In Other News:

The Jagex Store is being stocked with action figures this month, in the form of Gower Rangers. Each of these mighty morphing models comes with pet cabbage, horses and a can of tuna.

If you find Clan Wars games occasionally tame and uninspiring, we will be adding chompies and jubblies to the catapult area. Fire these agitated birds to see if you can hit Pigzilla in Draynor Market and contribute to your team’s score.

Sailing.

Due to an editing error, the ‘wear’ option on party hats will no longer be the default option. Be careful when donning one, as we have corrected it to the intended ‘tear’ left-click option, for those who need to clear inventory space for ranaar.

We will be fixing the clipping issues on the Emperor’s New Clothes gear that was released with last week’s update.

Appryfooz, Brother of Zimberfizz
Head of April Fools

**(We wish you the very best this April Fools, and you can expect the real Behind the Scenes later on today! Promise!)**"

Reforms Finished Ahead of Time

2011-04-01T05:15:00.000-07:00

I finished the Reform way ahead of schedule.

http://services.stellardawn.com/m=forum_fo/c=WeaB5*KL4Po/forums.ws?96,97,114,92831

Regards, IVIilitarus

Slam

2011-03-30T05:19:00.000-07:00

This post was named in honour of my overuse of the word 'slam' and variations thereof in my newest fanfic, Moros.

Back from vacation to the Victoria Falls. Not worth spending 4 nights there. Great for 2 nights, though. Got pictures!

First's a fun one. I happened to be pointing the camera upward at the vultures circling (no, I wasn't gonna die. The restaurant there feeds the vultures every day with leftovers for the tourists 'n' stuff). So in the picture, you really have to ask yourself whether it's a bird or a plane.

The falls themselves were a lot more interesting from the chopper. At ground level, it was hard to see anything. The spray's huge and gets in the way, and once you venture past the first set, you won't see anything. The spray's thicker than most rainstorms and has zero visibility. The spray is also 100% water, so you will be soaked from the top-down.

The Falls are situated almost in between Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. There happened to be a rainstorm going on in Botswana and I got a picture.

Other fun stuff included taking this photo of the chopper coming for a landing. Then whilst going through them, I saw that big smokestack in the background. Worked out it was the spray from the falls a bit later.

Also, poked lions with a stick and rode an elephant. Didn't get the picture of lion poking, because the guy missed it and I didn't feel like doing it again, on account of 3 lions I'd be pissing off.

Rode the elephant. Fed the elephant. Smelled like the elephant afterward. If you ever do that sort of thing, don't wear your best.

Wrote the prologue and first chapter of Moros over there. Updated some Combine stuff. Wrote more stuff for the Reform.

I cannot wait for Runescape's clan update. I wanna test it out, because I am a clan leader now.

There's been a spike of activity on the SDOF while I was gone. 2 or 3 of the members received a message in their Jagex inbox about Stellar Dawn, but were told to keep it quiet, or some variation. 2 Forum Moderators started posting again and SallyD is on the 'Just Dropping By' thread on the Stellar Dawn Central forum.

Also, Waiting Gets More Harderer

2011-03-21T16:04:00.000-07:00

In a coupla hours, my parents are dragging me off on another vacation I don't care about (shit). For 10 days. Of my 20 day school holiday.

Also, today, I quit EVE. I got what I came for and left because I didn't feel like selling one of my nice ships to pay for membership renewal, so I handed all of my stuff to a friend and told her not to get it blown up.

EVE's real nice and all, but I don't think I'm part of the niche that it fills out for. I want internet spaceships, not Serious Business Internet Spaceships. EVE's stressful and this frees up a lot of time in my schedule.

Today, I was on the verge of leaving on this vacation and I had 6 days of gametime left just before a 10 day vacation, so I asked around if someone could hand me 10 million (100k or so in Runescape terms) and I'd pay them later. I even offered collateral. Everybody accused me of scamming. EVE's just too paranoid and mean, even for me. One more reason I'm leaving.

I'll still be working on the reform whilst on vacation, but I won't have internet access.

Now, onto my rant.

Today's topic is: JAGEX DOESN'T KNOW WHAT MAKING ITEMS BETTER IS.

See, Jagex seems to think that stronger = better. They've spent so much time adding new and more horrendously overpriced/-powered items to the Runescape that they've lost contact with making the game better. The time they're spending on stupidly overpowered and rare stuff that fewer than a thousand people see should be better spent on making the experience better for a majority.

Take Torva, Pernix and Virtus' Crap. Those are armour sets dropped by Runescape's (latest) most powerful monster, Nex. Nex being the one who takes teams of dozens to kill, for a relatively small chance at a single expensive piece of crap. A full set of said crap, most of us will see less than once a month.

This crap also happens to be the best in its class and is another layer of whining and dreaming veterans have to dispel. Swarms of kiddies fresh out of Lumbridge who want something valuable as their 5-years-down-the-road goal. Problem between this and the original dream of a party hat set is that this is actually good for something, which makes crushing their dreams through use of common sense and realism that much harder.

Now, what every single player will see in an ordinary month of varied play is rune stuff.

Thing is, most of the rune stuff is for mid-level players. And we see it everywhere. Thing is, it's still biased toward the scimitar and 2hander. The huge array of other weapons don't see much use. Jagex releases tons of weapons and never spends time rebalancing them unless strictly needed.

It's common items like those that need updates and rebalancing. We don't need another Bestest, Rarest Item Ever. We need Good, Affordable, Accessible Items.

They're in the boat that thinks Expensive + Rare = Good.

Abyssal Whips aren't extremely expensive or rare and they're good. Dragon longswords are reliable weapons. The rune scimitar/2hander combo is a valuable PvP tool used by thousands of players.

Any drop specific to Nex is a crock of shit.

These items dropped by Nex are a mix of ego boost and hopeless dream.

Only the richest players will ever receive the full set, who use it to fuel their already enormous egos. Impressionable new people get caught up in that wake left by the ego and they want a set of that, too. Those new players are then caught in a horribly, horribly boring grind for money to buy a few pieces of armour. Time spent dong much more productive things.

Happened to me, too. My first major, boring grind was for a whip. That grind was the first time I ever felt like dropping Runescape, was how boring it was. Then came my grind for the 'V' on my banner carrier. That was what, 3 months of killing the pointless monsters for a number on a flag. I've effectively quit combat training after that champion's binge. I can count how many levels I've gained in combat skills in the last 2 years on 1 hand.

Jagex hasn't worked it out.

Last year was their year for the newbs and they messed it up. Freeplay didn't get any useful new weapons or bosses. Even pay-to-players only got quests and minor training areas. We don't need one-time quests or static training areas. We carry and use our items every single day. Balance and update those.

Almost every weapon in the range is underused. Halberds were meant to be a warrior's answer to a ranger behind the table. Spears are supposed to be a perfectly balanced for weapon for general use. They're underused because they need a buff. Put a bit more strength behind the Halberd and an armour piercing gimmick. Make spear poisons available to non-members and buff their strength. Give weapons a gimmick so there is no longer a best. Right now, the weapon with the highest slash bonus + highest strength + highest speed is almost always the best. Rectify that. Make battles unpredictable.

What Runescape really needs is an addition to the useful stuff. There's no need for junk like that dropped by Nex. It's to expensive to risk in major combat events and too overpowered for most everyday uses. It's only point is to show off. I know what it's like to show off rare stuff and get compliments (Lord Marshal's stuff, 4 99's, 5 Champions, Godsword, Armadyl Armour and Dragonfire Shield, bitches). It's a nice feeling, but not everyone is a multi-year veteran.

Most players are on the ground, slugging it out with Dragon Longswords and their first whips. Give them a chance to advance. The people whose asses you're kissing with top-of-the-line gear are individual established players. The grind-weary masses with their rune scimitars and first dragon plateskirts are the one's you're supposed to pander to. They're the subscribers you need to convince to stick around.

Don't encourage mindless rote learning and grinding. Encourage innovative thought and cost effectiveness (see previous post for where grinding for a nice, expensive item gets you)

Regards, IVIilitarus

With Regards to the Idiots Who Try to Save Money

2011-03-17T06:42:00.000-07:00

I got a bit into Runescape again more recently, what with Jagex effectively abandoning the Stellar Dawn Official Forums, their new leadership change and teaming up with Hasbro to develop an MMORPG based on the Transformers franchise.

Guess what that means for Stellar Dawn?

I hope Transformers Online fucking burns.

So like I said, I got back into Runescape a bit and went Castle Warring (my all-time favourite minigame). Whilst in the waiting room, I got into a discussion of why I was rich, had a Dragonfire Shield, Godsword, Armadyl Armour, but still used my Barrow's armour over a set of Bandos armour.

I did the math myself more than a year ago, when on a my shark killing fest and came to a groundbreaking conclusion;

Bandos items are collected, cost ineffective pieces of shit.

It's been a year down the road and prices have changed, but the conclusion doesn't.

I'll do the math again just for you.

As of this posting, the Bandos Chestplate sells for a hefty 19.2 million and the Plateskirt runs for 21.4 million.

Guthan's Platebody is 604k and Torag's Platelegs are 849k. Guthan's is the cheapest and all Barrows Platebodies have equal stats.

So Barrows armour is well over 20 times more expensive than Bandos Armour. Logic dictates that such a discrepancy in price would mean Bandos was far superior.

So we do a stats comparison.

Bandos Chestplate Statistics

Attack Bonuses:

Stabbing: 0
Slashing: 0
Crushing: 0
Magic: -15
Ranged: -10

Defence Bonuses

Stabbing: 98
Slashing: 93
Crushing: 105
Magic: -6
Ranged: 133
Summoning: 52

Damage Absorption

4% Melee
0% Magic
9% Ranged

Other Bonuses

Strength: 4
Ranged Strength: 0
Prayer: 1
Magic Damage: 0%

Guthan's Platebody Statistics

Attack Bonuses:

Stabbing: 0
Slashing: 0
Crushing: 0
Magic: -30
Ranged: -10

Defence Bonuses

Stabbing: 122
Slashing: 120
Crushing: 107
Magic: -6
Ranged: 132
Summoning: 60

Damage Absorption

5% Melee
0% Magic
10% Ranged

Other Bonuses

Strength: 0
Ranged Strength: 0
Prayer: 0
Magic Damage: 0%

So when compared side by side...

Guthan's Platebody has;

-15 Magic Attack below Bandos.
+24 Stab Defence above Bandos
+27 Slash Defence above Bandos.
+2 Crush Defence above Bandos.
-1 Ranged Defence below Bandos.
+8 Summoning Defence above Bandos.

+1% more Melee Absorption above Bandos.
+1% Ranged Absorption above Bandos.

-4 Strength Bonus below Bandos.
-1 Prayer Bonus below Bandos.

Which means even though you're paying 30 times the price of Guthan's Platebody, Bandos is consistently worse. -15 Magic Attack is meaningless, as no sane person mages in a Barrows Platebody. -1 Ranged Defence is a 0.77% difference.

-4 Strength Bonus means a difference of 10 lifepoints in damage.
-1 Prayer Bonus is really, really tiny. Especially if you are in grave need of a Prayer Bonus, you will wear something with a better boost. Like Verac's.

So you're paying 30 times the price of Guthan's Platebody for an item that is consistently worse.

Let's see if the Tassets fare better compared to Platebody and Chestplate issue.

Bandos Tassets Statistics

Attack Bonuses:

Stabbing: 0
Slashing: 0
Crushing: 0
Magic: -21
Ranged: -7

Defence Bonuses

Stabbing: 71
Slashing: 73
Crushing: 66
Magic: -4
Ranged: 93
Summoning: 25

Damage Absorption

3% Melee
0% Magic
6% Ranged

Other Bonuses

Strength: 2
Ranged Strength: 0
Prayer: 1
Magic Damage: 0%

Torag's Platelegs Statistics

Attack Bonuses:

Stabbing: 0
Slashing: 0
Crushing: 0
Magic: -21
Ranged: -7

Defence Bonuses

Stabbing: 85
Slashing: 82
Crushing: 83
Magic: -4
Ranged: 92
Summoning: 30

Damage Absorption

3% Melee
0% Magic
7% Ranged

Other Bonuses

Strength: 0
Ranged Strength: 0
Prayer: 0
Magic Damage: 0%

So when compared side by side...

Torag's Platelegs have;

+14 Stab Defence above Bandos
+19 Slash Defence above Bandos.
+17 Crush Defence above Bandos.
-1 Ranged Defence below Bandos.
+5 Summoning Defence above Bandos.

+1% Ranged Absorption above Bandos.

-2 Strength Bonus below Bandos.
-1 Prayer Bonus below Bandos.

Once again, you're paying 25 times more money for an item that has consistently lower stats. -1 Ranged Defence in this case is only less than a 1.5% difference. The Strength and Prayer Bonuses still don't justify 25 times the price or use of armour that is worse in 2 thirds of categories.

Combined, the difference is quite dramatic.

When comparing Guthan's Chestplate worn with Torag's Platelegs to the Bandos Chestplate worn with the Bandos Tassets, the Barrow's equipment has...

-15 Magic Attack below Bandos.

+38 Stab Defence above Bandos.
+46 Slash Defence above Bandos.
+19 Crush Defence above Bandos.
-2 Ranged Defence below Bandos.
+13 Summoning Defence Bonus

+1% Melee Absorption above Bandos.
+2% Ranged Absorption above Bandos.

-6 Strength Bonus below Bandos.
-2 Prayer Bonus below Bandos.

A Rune Full Helm has less Stab, Slash and Summoning Defence compared to the difference. Meaning if you wear Bandos over Barrows, you've given up the equivalent of a Rune Full Helm in Stab, Slash and Summoning Defence without using a single extra slot and saving over 20 times the money.

"But we save so much money on repairs!"

That's the best reason people have for paying exorbitant prices.

Okay. Fine. Let's stack the repair costs of Barrows against the buying price of Bandos armour.

We'll start with some stats. Let's assume the character repairing the Barrows uses an NPC repair, not an armour stand at home, so must pay full price for repairs. You know, because his skills suck.

That means a total of 85850 is spent on repairs for Barrows armour every 15 hours.

85850 x 250 = 21.46 million.

Meaning that you can repair both Barrows items fully for 250 times before it matches up to the cost of a single set of Bandos Tassets.

85850 x 223 = 19.1 million.

Meaning you can repair both Barrows items fully another 223 times before it matches the cost of the Bandos Chestplate.

The total number of times (at today's prices) you can repair your Guthan's Platebody and Torag's Platelegs 473 times, before it is equal to buying the Bandos Chestplate and Platelegs.

So 473 full repairs meant the items fully degraded 473 times.

473 x 15 = 7095 hours

That's 7095 hours of combat without a break, before Barrows items can degrade enough to make up the cost of Bandos items.

7095 ÷ 24 = 295 days.

So you have to spend 295 days fighting without a single break for eating, sleep or even repairs to make up for the Bandos items' price.

My total level is 1882. I have 4 skills at level 99.

I have spent 172 days on Runescape in real time, spread over half a decade.

So somehow, you need to spend over 50% more time fighting with Barrows armour than I have spent training every skill on my character 1882 levels, before you save enough money on repairs to make Bandos items cost effective.

The Bandos items still have consistently worse stats.

Does that answer the question to which one is better?

Is that a lesson to the people who spent over 20 times what they could have for a worse item under the guise of saving money in the long term?

Once again, my groundbreaking conclusion: Bandos items are collected, cost ineffective pieces of shit.

The only reason to buy Bandos is for giant spikes and looking rich*.

Regards, IVIilitarus

*looking rich does not equate to being intelligent.

Drone Spewing Tumour

2011-03-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

Despite the relative suckness of my old Rokh compared to everything else in EVE, I still loved it. No doubt my favourite ship ever. I did sink into an all time low and bought a Raven (it's ugly and can't defend itself), but could never get into it. Flying the Raven was an experience not unlike dating Ke$ha. Unfulfilling and boring. Yes, it brings in money, but you start to wonder why anyone would do it at all after a while.

The Raven is just annoying to fly, to me. There's not enough damage in it for me to make the paper-thin tank worthwhile, so I sold it off and replaced it with a much cheaper Dominix. In fact, the Dominix is the cheapest battleship of all and the Raven hull alone cost as much as a fully-fitted Dominix.

The Dominix is ugly and opinions vary on whether it looks more like a tumour or a shoe. There is a popular photoshop of the shoe concept, but nobody is willing to try and do the tumour version.

The defining qualities of the Dominix are drone spam and tank. The Dominix is the recommended Gallente missioning battleship, due to its AFK potential (warp in, get aggro, launch drones, wait) and is quite a lot like a Rattlesnake. Even with my sucktastic armour tanking skills (trained for shields, me), the ship still holds up better than the Rokh or Raven in a fight.

The Rokh nostalgia hasn't left me, though and I dug up some nice screenies I took of my Rokh and the jerks shooting at my Rokh from a few weeks back.

Also, just got 81 Fletching and looking into 99 Fletching. It's cheap and easy and I like the idea of a 5th 99.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Writing tl;dr's for Fun and Profit

2011-03-12T10:02:00.000-08:00

The Combine's in the middle of reforms. Reforms are planned upgrades to the Combine that happen at intervals, fixing things that go wrong and adding lots of pretty new stuff.

First Reform changes the way the Combine is organised (sigh, again) and will be the last ginormohugic upgrade to the Combine before BETA release.

Speaking of the BETA, Jagex has stated that they will give out no new information until BETA announcement. They' stated that it's all part of their plan.

It's really not hard to tell that that is not how you manage a pre-release video game. Especially not an MMORPG.

More information on a Combine Reform is a bit of a tl;dr (like half of my writing), so can read the wiki pages.

Right. A wiki.

See, Jagex forums aren't a good place to write and archive tl;dr's, what with the 2000 character limit and habit of inactive threads dropping offa the edge in a month. Our offsite forum could only handle so much of my junk, and I write too much, so why the hell not? SDCombine Wiki was born.

So far I'm the only one editing and adding to it on account of the Stellar Dawn Official Forum being deader than dead. Lots of goodbye threads are popping up in the Stellar Dawn section and a number of my best clan members have become inactive (after saying goodbye, natch). I've stuck a buncha stuff in, already, but still.

Despite being a sci-fi-ish and Stellar Dawn blog, I got offa my ass and pulled up two Fletching levels today, thanks to the Double Experience Thingie.

Regards, IVIilitarus

I don't Code in Python

2011-02-22T07:57:00.002-08:00

So school started and that can really, really cut into your video gaming and blogging habit.

Which is okay, because I have a Rattlesnake.

The Rattlesnake is one of the kings of PvE. A faction battleship (6 times as expensive, twice as useful) that is a dedicated, over-the-top drone boat. It has some of the nastiest tank of anything sub-capital, one of the largest drone bays of anything sub-capital, and rather decent direct damage.

AND I AM NEVER FUCKING SHOOTING A PLAYER'S DESTROYER IN A FIT OF RAGE EVER AGAIN!

http://killboard.eveuniversity.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=8969885

It was like that other ship I lost. Provoked the wrong people and got my ass kicked.

Except this time, it was about a month's worth of income gone. =P

Regards, IVIilitarus

Such a Pretty Explosion

2011-01-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

Fun thing happened yesterday.

I tried soloing my first level 4 mission, but I got a particularly difficult one and decided to go for it anyway.

It didn't go well and after destroying the big ships, but my guns being a load of suck that couldn't track small, fast moving cruisers, I had to call in a friend. Once the cruisers went down, another bunch of battleships spawned, but I couldn't get through their shields. I chased a battleship for a good 10 minutes in one direction and then 10 in the other. Finally, the friend showed up and bailed me out. We finished it together.

Today, I upped my skills a bit and went for it again.

It worked! This time, it was an easier mission, with only a dozen or so battleships. It took a good 3 hours, but I got it done. I'm a 2.2 million skillpoint character in a game where 4.5 million is barely enough for a battleship. I flew a battleship that was particularly bad at PvE against enemies my shields were particularly weak against and it worked.

Salvaged and sold to bring me back to 185 million, skills are all going up and I should be able to get something really nice out of this within 2 weeks. My gametime ends on the 25th of February, though so I need to hurry it up to hit my goal of 350 million.

It's a great feeling. I can reasonably call myself independent, now. Just waiting up for a friend to log in more often so we can run mission together.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Space is Lonely

2011-01-23T09:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it only took 2 weeks, but my application into E-Uni finally got accepted. I just have to wait in another queue because I opted out on joining in the middle of war and preferred to join afterward, so I have to stand in line with every other guy who left for the duration of the recent war and came back.

Mining's boring, but I took some time off to run a level 4 mission with a friend. It ended disastrously because my skill for flying the Rokh sucked and I wasn't adapted to switching ranges. Any ship in EVE sucks without good skills.

I am now about 500k away from my 2.3 million goal and have Drone skills lined up. Drones are basically separate little ships you launch from a drone bay which can be sent to harass and cause damage. The basic ones don't do that much and are only good for whittling down one or two enemies, but the T2 variants will smash entire squadrons alone and I'm aiming for those. A combination of railguns picking off battleships and drones supporting against lighter ships will pull me through. The main weakness on my ship is the lack of damage and versatility at close range. It's a sniper that's almost useless at less than 20km.

The highlight of the weak would have been taking a new player on missions. She's been playing for 2 weeks and got herself into a rather good battlecruiser, but doesn't quite have the skills to back it up yet. I took her on some level 4 missions and tanked, whilst she dealt with frigates. I let her keep the loot and salvage afterward.

It worked out pretty well, even though we're both new to this sort of thing. I've never tanked in level 4 missions in my life and she'd never been in a level 4 before, so it was a learning experience for both of us. She picked up on supporting fleets and aggro management whilst I got the experience of tanking in a level 4.

Back to the indescribably boring grind, until I get the skills done and meet my goal. The plan after that is to hit up the Sister of EVE Epic mission arc, which is a very, very long series of missions intended to give newbies a head start. Problem is, I never finished it when I was a newb and only got the first few done. The arc is intended to be completed in ships cruiser and below, so I don't think my battleship will be in any real danger.

Of particular note is the Arc's final boss, a battlecruiser with extremely strong shields that can take upwards of 10 minutes to break. I intend to charge in with a full armed battleship and a swarm of drones, just to backhand that bastard on behalf of every newbie who couldn't get past his shields.

Also have pictures! The first is my old portrait, the second is the new one. There's also a big one with various ships and size comparisons, but a few ships are missing. I got the do-over for the portrait I wanted, but failed at making my character the handsome, disciplined guy, so I went straight for the arrogant, overly patriotic, racist bastard who won't even look you in the eye as you kneel to take the picture.

I think I nailed it the second time.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Unarmed Battleships

2011-01-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

@Lady Dragon

EVE Online expansions are free, like Jagex' updates. All you have to do is update your client to get the new content. Trial accounts play on the main server with everyone else, but with some skills, ships and features unavailable, but not far behind everyone else.

The character creator is out and it is very, very good. I'm not posting my character's portrait because he looks like I ass and I'm gonna petition for a do-over.

Thankfully, a number of players got the bright idea of messing around with the character creator to do fun stuff. My favourite is Barack Hussein Obama.

I took 2 days off to run some missions and boost my income a bit, as well as to get away from the mines. It's a lot like Runescape in space, clicking on rocks and waiting for your containers to fill up.

I also got scammed and then killed.

In EVE Online, anything within game mechanics is permitted, with very few exceptions. This includes scamming and exploiting game mechanics to make a profit.

For instance, many miners use a method called jetcan mining. Jetcan mining occurs because a ship's cargohold may be too small to make taking minutes off to warp to the station and come back. When jetcan mining, you jettison a load of ore into space in a cargo container. This container has 27000m3 of space, far more than most ship cargoholds. The can floats next to you for an hour whilst you continue mining and depositing into the can. When the asteroids are mined out, you return with an Industrial ship which has plenty of cargo space and pick up the ore.

The problem with jetcans is that they're not locked. Anybody can steal from a can, but this is registered as stealing in the game and the victim and his corporation will have 15 minutes during which he may kill the thief without intervention. More than that, they often deposit an item of their own into the can, thereby making the can and all contents their own.

This means they're stealing from generally unarmed miners, costing them cans full of ore and are able to avoid intervention simply by docking and waiting out the timer.

Now, I get can flipped whilst I was turning in a load of ore. When I came back, the can was no longer mine, but the belt was empty and I was alone, so I moved in and stole everything back. This counted as stealing on my part and gave the thieves kill rights. At that point, they both decloaked within the asteroid and shot my ass off.

Moral of the story? Let the angry men keep your stuff, in exchange for your life.

I took a couple of days to run some missions and wait for the can flippers to get bored and leave my home system, during which I racked up another 50 million and bought an upgraded version of the ship I lost. Now, I'm back to mining and little over half way to my goal at 1.19 million out of 2.30 million. I'll also be able to (finally) equip actual weapons on my battleship tomorrow when the skills are done training, but I will leave at least another week or two of training while other battleship skills pick up. No use flying a ship and then losing it because of poor skills.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Playing the Waiting Game

2011-01-18T05:51:00.000-08:00

Incursion is being deployed now and should be here within an hour.

CCP releases large expansions every 6 months to EVE. Each carrying new ships, major features, new content and client updates and patches. Incursion is particularly large and was split into 4 pieces. The first were some patches, engine updates and a new ship.

The second was a unique holiday ship and removal of a certain, obnoxious set of skills.

The third consists of a few extra ships, additional voice features, system and environment effects as well as an AI boost.T

The fourth and final part of Incursion is the Incursion itself. Incursions are a team based PvE events. NPC Sansha characters will invade systems effectively at random. The system will have negative increasingly negative effects on the players until the invaders are stopped by the players. The new Sansha NPCs feature much more advanced AI including remote repair, concentrated fire, targeting priority and large group tactics.

The part I'm waiting for most is the new character creation system. EVE's old character creation system has been in use since the beginning and the new system is part of the next expansion; Incarna.

Incarna will finally allow players to leave their ships and walk around a bit. Details are scarce, but the character creator will allow us to make real avatars for that expansion.

A major UI update is coming along with proper hotkeys.

I'll have my new character to ya'll as soon as possible.

EDIT: 'as soon as possible' appears to be about 24 hours. The new patch is a bit large.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Rokh On

2011-01-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

EVE Online here, I got my first battleship!

The usual progression of an average Caldari player...

Rookie Ship, which sucks. Go to something better soon.

The Condor comes in within an hour of play and is a useful stand-in for a combat frigate until a nicer frigate

Kestrel/Merlin. The Kestrel is a good missioning missile boat, the Merlin is tougher and sports turrets as well as launchers for versatility. Merlin is more popular as a PvP ship.

To Cormorant, the basic destroyer. Destroyers do well in level 1 and 2 missions, but are not often used in PvP.

That's the easy part, it happens overnight, with the Kestrel/Merlin and Cormorant both staying useful.

Then, the first cruiser, a Caracal. The Caracal is another missile slinging boat often used as cheap DPS in a fleet. It can sport battlecruiser sized launchers at ranged or be used with smaller launchers to deal with obnoxious little frigates.

Follow that up with the Drake, one of the best battlecruiser ingame. This thing has more defence than a battleship and enough firepower to stay alive, to boot. The Caldari don't have a very good battleship lineup compared to most, so most Caldari fleets consist of Drake spam. The Drake cannot usually stand 1 on 1 against a battleship, but costs at least 2 times less and doesn't require very high skills to field effectively, so we compensate with numbers of what may or may not be the most loved/hated ship in the entire game.

Going up here, most players start with a Raven. The Raven is one of the best missioning ships in the game and is a good way to settle into a battleship, as players can adjust to the new ship against NPCs, first. The Raven is not seen as often in PvP, due to the disadvantages of missiles, but is still the cheapest Caldari battleship and a very good start.

Thing is, starting with the Raven means flying a poorly tanked ship with plenty of damage that launches missiles. I like defence, I like steady advances over a rush and I hate missiles, so the Raven's description is a real turnoff for me.

Also, the Raven is ugly. It's not a dignified battleship. What kind of battleship has two wings and a cockpit?

So that leaves the Scorpion and the Rokh.

The Scorpion is not a real combat ship. It's an Electronic Warfare ship for fleet combat. This thing jams the enemy and takes a bit of heat off of your fleet. As a result, it is almost always shot first. Scorpions don't usually leave a battle alive. It also has poor armament and rather average defences.

So it's the Rokh or Raven. Which is great, because the Rokh is great.

The Rokh can fit a very good tank and still maintain a decent DPS. It also looks like a killing machine. It's basically a box with engines on one end and a dip in the structure where the engines are. It's blunt enough to be a true battleship.

The main issue with hybrid turrets (the Rokh's weapon of choice) is that they have trouble outside of their optimal ranges. If it's too close, your turrets have trouble and lose accuracy. If it's too far, your turrets have trouble aiming and lose accuracy. The only way to adjust for ranges is to switch out for a completely new type of ammunition. The shortest ranged ammunition for a Rokh with my fitting still equates to a 60km Optimal range, when most missions take place within the 40km bracket.

So the advantage of missiles is that they do the same damage regardless of range, whilst most PvP battles involve largely static fleets at a good range apart from side to side. Therefore, the Rokh is a good fleet support sniping battleship, rather than a line vessel.

I took the Rokh.

Maybe I just hate the Raven that much.

I love my Rokh and the corpmate who bought it very, very much. I got into a deal with the other player; He'd buy and fit out a mining Rokh and iff I could mine 800 000 m3 of ore in a Rokh, I could keep the Rokh. It's a rather tedious feat, considering the limited cargohold of the Rokh and thus, the need for constant warping to stations, but I took it on. The first week of ore mining goes to the corporation, with all further ore being sold for profit, to make up for the time I waste mining when I could be running missions for real cash.

The Rokh was delivered to the hangar last week and I finally got hold of it today. It's a lovely ship and absolutely wonderful, even when mining. I changed the fit slightly and added some mining drones to supplement my mining yield and got to work, cleaning out the asteroids in my home system.

The journey begins here. The goal is 800 000 m3, which is just over 2.3 million units of ore. I've already racked up 170k and can see at 220k before the day ends.

I got some real nice screenshots of the ship while I was at it. EVE's got real beautiful graphics once you get rid of the clunky UI and appreciate the pretty for a bit.

The other nice thing about mining is that it's an opportunity to get my skills up. See, EVE Online skill training is a whole different ballgame. You set up a queue with skills and levels you want and hit 'Apply', then it's just a matter of waiting until they're done. The wait can easily take anywhere from 10 minutes to months. Training is done in real time and happens even when you're idle, offline, client switched off, computer turned off, unplugged and buried beneath the Earth, your skills will continue rising.

Which is great, but it's balanced by the fact that you have almost no ways of interfering to make skill training faster or less obnoxious. Implants can be plugged into boost your attributes and decrease training times by a percentage. That's it. The rest of the time, you're stuck waiting for the countdown to finish.

To while I waited weeks for the ability to sit inside my battleship and warp around a bit, I still have to wait...weeks, maybe? Before I can actually put guns on the battleship and fire them at stuff. So for now, I mine. In a battleship. There's a story to tell. Everybody else uses Mining Barges, Exhumers or Mining Cruisers, but everybody else is weak. I mine in a battleship and I welcome the occasional NPC pirate with open drone bays.

When my skills are up and I can fly this thing properly (you know, with actual guns), I'll use it in place of a Raven. I ain't doing no stupid ship.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Education is Kind of a Big Deal

2011-01-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

Even in EVE. Because EVE is serious business.

@Lady Dragon

I know what Starcraft is. =P Amarr are just a tiny bit crazier than Protoss, but have some very pretty ships.

Back in the earlier days of EVE (early, not beginning), new players simply had no hope of catching up to old players due to the skill training system and a shoddy tutorial meant new players could hardly catch up to some other new players.

An organisations called EVE University was formed to combat this incompetence (developer and player). EVE University is a corporation that specialises in teaching all players about EVE. Every essential aspect of EVE is covered in the university. Live lectures are given via voice chat on basic subjects as well as live exercises performed out of hangar. Recordings of lessons are available from the website, though it's better to have the teacher on hand to answer questions.

One such lesson is Caldari Ships 101 and the full list of lessons is here, though the wiki is a very good source of information for new players on its own.

The university's chatroom should be one of the first destinations a new player goes to. By default, a chatroom called Rookie Help automatically opens every time you log in for your first month, but this channel is a crowded, immature mess. Close Rookie Help and gos straight to the university's chat named E-Uni.

This being EVE Online, the university regularly forms fleets of new and old to send to lowsec for live combat training. The university is well-known, meaning idiotic troll corps often declare war on it hoping for easy kills of new players or just to slow down the university. The university has a very complicated set of Standard Operating Procedure during wartime which must be followed. This SOP is designed to hinder and corporation declaring war on the university, generally by protecting the vulnerable players and ensuring any kills gained aren't worth the losses.

The university also provides very well for members, with stocks of ships available for rent and in case of war, fully fitted ships for combat pilots at no charge, as well as a skillbook wallet to pay for skillbooks (EVE Online skills must be bought in skillbooks before training).

EVE University is a very good place for any serious new player and I left my corp yesterday to join. My corporation is making a big move to bring itself closer to alliance territory and lowsec and I was going to be one of the few people to stay behind due to low skills and standings with people at the destination. I decided to join E-Uni to improve my skills and knowledge as things were getting quiet on the homefront.

The university being a very valued place, even joining is a nightmare. A large questionnaire should be filled out beforehand. After that, you line up in a queue of players waiting to speak to a Recruitment Officer. The recruitment officer will interview you and accept you based on your performance in the interview and then decide whether you get in or your wait was worth a whole lot of nothing.

My wait so far's been 4 days and I'm expecting at least another 3 before I see my interview. And I joined at one of the quicker times. Some of these people have been waiting for 3 weeks.

Everybody picks a race and bloodline before joining. The avatar is purely aesthetic and character creation only affects where your starting location is and what rookie ship will be issued. Picking a race of which you enjoy the look is a good idea. The only skills your avatar affects is a few levels of your faction's most basic frigate ship, which can be trained on another faction in a few hours.

There are playable 4 factions, each with their distinct opinions, philosophy and art style.

Caldari are a hypercapitalistic gone worse. The state is literally divided between the megacorporations, with government holding less than 15% of total shares. The corporations are in constant competition and police themselves. People are born into a corporation and being fired is equivalent to a death sentence or exile. Caldari are determined, disciplined and abide by rules and a very rigid society. Caldari ships are usually grey and blue, unbalanced and built for utility. Caldari favour long-ranged engagements with hybrid turrets and missiles.

Amarr are monotheists and the oldest and most numerous of the empires. Most fully endorse slavery and in their earlier years, enslaved all races they came across. They enslaved much of the Minmatar race prior to the uprisings and still hold much of the Minmatar population. The Amarr are also the source of the main humanitarian aid organisation in EVE, the Servant Sisters of EVE. Amarr ships tend to be gold with touches of black as well as ornate engravings and decorations present on hulls. They use long-ranged, lower damage beam lasers and mid-ranged, good damage pulse lasers with light drone support as their weapons of choice.

The Minmatar consist of many freed slaves. The nation's development has been stunted by Amarr slavery, but they are still amongst the brightest thinkers in EVE. Minmatar are driven and aggressive at defending their homes and livelihoods. Minmatar ships are usually rust red or brown and have a ramshackle, improvised appearance. Minmatar ships are the fastest ingame and the main weapons are long-ranged, high damage, slow artillery cannons and short range, high rate of fire, good damage autocannons.

Gallente are mix of almost every race in existence. A highly liberal society which accepts foreigners with open arms, they are a melting pot of refugees and immigrants from everywhere who will defend their freedom and rights to their deaths. Gallente are highly varied in culture, but are united in their love for freedom. Gallente ships are dark green and turquoise, front-heavy and rounded. Their primary weapons are hybrid turrets and large numbers of drones.

New player life in EVE isn't easy. You start alone in a cold and unfeeling world and your only known source of help is one of the worst help channels in the game. Rookie Help. Close it ASAP.

You first ship is the rookie ship. Arguably the weakest armed thing in the game. Your basic tutorial agent is in the system you are currently in. Do the tutorial, follow the agent's instructions to a destination of Career Agents. These agents will teach you the vast majority of EVE Online through a rather long tutorial process which will probably take the better part of an afternoon and part of an evening to complete fully.

They're also a very good isk and ship source. By the end of these, you should have a good frigate, a destroyer and an industrial, all as mission rewards or granted on mission acceptance. You may not have the skills to fly all of them, but I recommend the industrial and frigate. At this point, you can move out of your training system into a bigger world.

There are lots of corporations to join. Many of them take new players, but it's best to have a plan before you start the game, in the days before the client is downloading. I recommend downloading the 'demo' from Steam. Steam's reliable and the 'demo' is actually the full client and is offered at the low, low price of free.

Once you are out of your training system and have slipped comfortably into a station, with all assets nearby, you can go one of three ways;

1. EVE University. They always accept new members and are a first community for a lot of people. Their public chat is 'E-Uni' and is a good community with lots of good advice.

2. Join a corporation. If a corporation has an office in your station, it means they have a base of sorts near you. Read their description, player numbers and see how well their alliance ranks and submit an application.

3. Stay alone. EVE Online favours the player who goes out to find adventure themselves, but it is possible to fly alone and do whatever you want. Mine, run missions, roam in PvP. If your skills and wallet are solid, you can do it all.

Joining EVE University is a solid beginning for any player, as the university holds very regular events (happens when you have over 1000 players). Other corporations are more likely to accept a player if they have been through EVE University, as this is a mark of a competent player.

I don't elaborate much on new player life because it's so open. Telling you about what to do after the tutorial is tantamount to saying, "Do what you want." The best advice I can give you is to plan hard and early. EVE is a big place and it's up to you to make your own fun. The university just happens to be a very good start.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Stupid...Stupid...Stupid...Stupid...

2011-01-11T07:36:00.000-08:00

Well, see, this post was originally to be a good look at where a new player in EVE Online can go to for help and just how organised and useful the truly good players in EVE are, but school started and I saved a draft for later.

See, school started in down here in South Africa, you're allowed to pick which major subjects you take with you to your future career (to emphasise these paths and let people be more specialised in one area). You have 2 subjects to take from a total of 4. You may take on extras on the side.

The options are Physics/Economics AND Accounting/Life Sciences

So you can pick one from the left and one from the right. End of story.

We also have options for maths, here. You can take Mathematical Literacy or Core Maths. Core Maths is the standard mathematics including trigonometry and such people take to great careers. In fact, Core Maths in our high schools is just plain maths for the rest of you.

Mathematical Literacy is a shitty excuse made by an incompetent Department of Education to make their nation's mathematical literacy rates look better on the pie charts. Mostly because that our moronic Ministers of Education want to keep their jobs all the time. At one point, the minimal percentage required for a pass in a single subject was 40% fuckin' percent. For a lot of subjects, it still is.

Let me quote a little gem from this piece.

"In 2008, the pass rate for maths sat at 44.11 percent. It has jumped to 47 percent in 2010."

Hah.

They blame Apartheid, of course. They blame 'the evil and strife this country has faced' in the past.

Guess what? This ain't your fucking Apartheid. I'm the next generation. I was born months after the nation went free. Hell, I am one of the minorities. I'm a part of the generation that will lead this nation long after your segregation is relegated to the history books where they belong.

Thing is, our idiotic Department of Education is too concerned with damage control, saving face and, too a greater extent, their jobs to worry about us. South Africa poured 165 billion Rands into the educational system. Approximately 24.0396 billion US Dollars.

20% of state expenditure goes to educate the masses and we have trouble getting beyond 50% in mathematics.

Where the fuck does that money go?

Back to me, because I shouldn't be spewing the same statistics my Department of Education is spewing. They've done enough damage. There's more to this than statistics.

There's an individual story here. While those idiot higher-ups are too busy working up another excuse for indescribable stupidity, we're losing down here.

In this case, the individual is me.

I picked Life Sciences and Economics. Planning to go into law. The joke is that half of my cases are someone getting hurt (link) and the other half is someone getting money stolen. That's the joke.

It is a joke. The first time I told the class, they laughed at the absurdity and common sense involved.

I'm dropping Economics ASAP and going Physics. Life Sciences + Physics = Profit.

It opens up a slew of opportunities and I can still carry on a possibly lawyering deal in peace. If I screw up my lawyering, I can run screaming to Engineering without stopping.

It's taken me far too long to work it out. This is my life. I'm in control. Not those idiots on the Executive Board. The Department of Education of South Africa is meaningless to me. I'm the only thing left in my life that can pull me together.

I am the next generation and I kindly request a more competent leadership.

Regards, IVIilitarus

EVE: It All Makes Sense

2011-01-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

The nice thing about deep, intriguing backstory is the distinct lack of gaping plotholes.

EVE's developers explore the creation, effect and consequences of as many actions and items ingame as remotely possible. (theoretically) Weekly Chronicles written give insight into the consequences, benefits and effects of simple actions we perform on a daily basis, as well as insight into how we capsuleers affect the universe.

For instance, when we destroy a station of some sort in one of our missions, a crate is often left behind, including a survivor (or 10). This seems a bit odd at first, as you'd expect other means of escape. Rather than ignoring this and writing it off as a plothole, the writers turned it into a gimmick for one of their shorts. It takes an intriguing look at how one person onboard a station might have gotten into this crate, for us to pick up.

The ability of us players to change our portraits is explained in a chilling two parter.

The origin of Aura, the AI who gives you the tutorial is explored in-depth as well.

Each chronicle is a separate peek at the lives of the people in New Eden and it fleshes out the universe to make it a much deeper place to live in.

Depressingly, Jagex never seemed to get that from the start and in their bid to become World of Warcraft's competition and left curious players wondering things like, "How did I ever get my hands on a one-of-a-kind weapon the gods fought over in some of their greatest battles?" or "How come my opponent has that same one-of-a-kind weapon and is currently beating me to death with it?"

Runescape feels like much more of a singleplayer game, where you are the great hero destined for a place in history; so where do the thousands of other great(er) heroes fit into this picture? Why did my adventurer friend just break the wonderful news that he stopped an ancient demon named Delrith from causing Varrock's destruction? Didn't I stop that same demon a month ago?

These small things pile up slowly and only start to prove Runescape as content-based MMO. Every player eventually follows the same path as the other guy before him and Jagex keeps adding on to these paths, never allowing us enough room to branch out and do what we want. Faruq's tools was a step in the right direction, giving us players tools and letting us run free with it. If more options were available to us for customisation, we wouldn't be cooped up in this box anymore.

Realism and justifiable interaction are all cornerstones of a good MMO. I can suspend my disbelief if the Grand Exchange delivers items to essentially anywhere with a bank instantaneously, even though items are always handed in at the Exchange first, but justify it with a network or something. Don't just leave us hanging at where some guy got a bullhorn and a Renaissance outfit and set up a giant trading plaza in Varrock which sprung out of nowhere.

These kinds of things are explained in EVE Online. The currency is isk. The InterStellar Kredit. Fun joke, isn't it?

It ain't no joke.

How much does it cost to travel into space with our technology? In the dozens of millions (of US dollars, standard Earth currency). Even with space-faring races in a highly resource rich universe, this sum is still obscene. The amount of planetary currency needed to buy an armoured and shielded frigate would be obscene to calculate, and then you move up the queue. I say planetary currency because there are so many currencies. Empires have currencies, planets have currencies, individual nations have currencies, the sheer amount of effort involved in conversion and customs would make it useless once us capsuleers attempt to spread to the stars, only to found our Amarr Throne is not accepted in Minmatar territories, where they only accept Matar Grands and our exploration gets stonewalled by bureaucracy.

The isk is a standardised currency, bought in by CONCORD (United Nations, but competent and in space) who act as mediator between the major factions. A single isk is worth incredible amounts of planetary currency due to the obscene amounts of cash needed for effective space travel. It's given a humourous nod in a mission where you are told to deliver ransom money. Thankfully, the incompetent kidnappers asked for planetary currency, which is near useless. You are given the money as an item to deliver. The item in question is 'A Lot of Money'.

Let's take an example; the Caldari Chimera Class carrier. It costs approximately 950 million isk. Would 950 million dollars by you a space carrier with built-in faster than light travel, crew, a complement of top-of-the line drones, logistics equipment and so advanced that you can interchange modules as you like, with minimal issue? You can turn your carrier into a repair specialist, supporting your fleets and repairing damage from dozens of enemies on your own or become fleet support, using warfare link to coordinate attacks and bolster allied defences. You can switch between these if you have the modules and are docked. Would 9.5 billion dollars even buy you that? That's how much an isk is worth.

Even our in-universe equivalent of the gold coin is explored in depth, with effects and consequences examined. One could comfortably retire to any planet in the universe with a few isk in their pockets. Each of us can easily earn our first million on the first day. That's why I always make unfunny jokes about how the missiles I launched in the last battle could feed an entire starving nation (if you read those 'A single cruise missile fired during the War on Terrorism cost...' things or hear about them on the news, you get the idea.

Stellar Dawn promises to bring "rich sci-fi storyline" with it, but that will be for nought if the rich sci-fi never extends past a single player. The interactions of ALL players and their consequences on the universe. Look to one of the previous posts entitled 'News from the Front'. There's a link to a story about players attempting to ferry 59 million isk in strippers and over 2 billion in booze to their fellow pilots. That freighter was destroyed, taking most of the cargo down with it. 2 billion. That's dozens of fully-equipped battleships, multiple high-tech ships, 2 full carriers in alcohol that's what happens when players get too much money and freedom. That even wasn't a hindrance on backstory or realism, that was an opportunity to tell a story about capsuleer wastefulness, our enigmatic actions and the damage we cause over trivial things. What kind of Alliance diverts a fleet to escort a ship full of strippers and booze?

The sermon's over. On my end of the spectrum, I hit the jackpot yesterday. I was still at 101 million (spent 10 million on an implant) and a friend offered to let me join on a very lucrative mission. I collected 11 million in bounties from the kills alone. In a magnificent stroke of luck, I accepted the same mission right afterward and we went through again. I took the mission, so I got the salvage from that mission. By the end of the day, I had gone from 101 million to 156 million.

Awesome.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Content, Goals and Dreams

2011-01-06T03:52:00.000-08:00

@Lady Dragon

My corp leader said if you can fly over to our base and join us for a bit and if you fit in well, we'll let you sign up. All's left is for you to decide to play the game.

I'd like to give special thanks to The Mittani on TenTonHammer for inspiring this post with this article on content and sandbox MMOs.

Runescape isn't a sandbox MMO. It's a content based MMO, like a slightly uglier version of World of Warcraft. The difference between content and sandbox MMOs is that in content based types, the parent company gives you the fun. In sandboxes, you make your own fun and set your own goals completely unforeseen by the developers.

The problem with content based MMOs is that you run out of content eventually. The main hook of such a game is the thousands of hours of content involved and the hundreds of places to explore. Sandboxes tend to have more mature players, because in a sandbox MMO, you are forced to make your own fun. You aren't spoon fed goals and missions by the system and any major goal attained was probably set by yourself, in your mind.

Runescape delivers all of those thousands of hours of content as promised. There are hundreds of quests, enemies, dozens of skills; but what happens once you've explored them all? The best way to test if Runescape is sandbox or content was to use the old goals system. Many players will remember how it functioned and what was in it. Now try to set yourself a goal that isn't included in the list of goals provided and doesn't involve 'Perform x action y times'.

Not easy, is it? If you're a quite high leveled player, you'll have a very narrow list of goals available, and most things you can think up outside of the goal system are 'Perform x action y times'. They're not fun goals for you to go at.

In EVE, missions are simple quests, repeatable and pay consistently. They're not incredibly exciting, but I don't find them completely boring, either. A friend of mine ingame was shocked at my ability to grind so many missions. I'll admit, it isn't fun, but it's good money and I can keep at it. This friend repeatedly asked me over the course of the afternoon, "What you doing?" every time I throw back a, 'missions', he was surprised at my patience and resistance to boredom. I've looked at the other aspects of EVE Online and found that missioning is right down on the bottom in terms of fun, alongside mining and hauling. It's repetitive, but I didn't think so.

When I told him I played Runescape for a while and this sort of thing happens every day and is usually even less exciting that launching missiles and drones at clusters of NPCs, he was blown away by how boring it must have been and praised my dedication.

So this got me thinking a bit longer; how does the sheer boredom and grind of Runescape catch so many players? Accessibility and free-to-play are major aspects, but even freemium, browser MMOs tend to lose their playerbase after a while.

Then I worked it out.

Runescape is a very good content-based MMO.

Once people run of content, they leave. So as long as developers keep pushing new features and content out, they can keep their customers. The news archives are a good indicator of how much content we get. An average of a single ingame update per 1.5 weeks is a stunning rate. We don't leave because they keep giving us new stuff to keep us busy until the next update! As long as we're around to keep doing each update, we'll still pay. Runescape is so addictive because of the amount of content that keeps us busy. Veterans who quit come back to the game to catch up on new content. Updates are free. We don't buy expansions, so people who quit can come right back.

So what makes a sandbox MMO any better than a content MMO? It's the players. In EVE, the players are what make the game so unique. Alliance politics become a frothing mess of angry nerds seizing imaginary territory with their internet spaceships. There are plenty of space-based games out there, EVE's playerbase makes it special. Runescape isn't as much of a Multiplayer game as it could be. I've played without successfully joining a clan for my whole career. I've done everything (barring those 2 quests) solo. The only time I interact with players is when I'm forced to in minigames and chatrooms, otherwise, I thrive on my own.

In EVE, everyone pushes you to join a corp as soon as you're eligible. Pick carefully and sign up, because these people will help you, nurture you and teach you. In EVE, the players hurt you and help you most. The tutorial is very impersonal, as are all interactions with NPCs and only the players there can make the game fun.

I joined my corporation (and subsequently, alliance) several weeks ago and this is the first time I've felt so at ease in a player organisation. Runescape clans boil mostly down to a bunch of people working together because they have common goals and have to through the rather limited clan system (I can't wait for those clan updates to appear on Stellar Dawn).

All this means that EVE is special because it's well-done sandbox. The main thing interfering and aiding your game are the players.

Your game.

In EVE, you decide what happens to your character, your dreams and goals are manifest. EVE is the kind of place where you can get really, really creative with where you want your little avatar to be in a year.

I'm not constrained as much by levels and equipment as I was in Runescape, I don't have to grind missions and mine all day if I feel it. They're a means to an end, an end which you decide. Do you want to infiltrate corporations and scam the shit out of them, jacking all of their assets and laugh at them while you leave? Would you rather launch suicide attacks against miners in highsec who think they're safe and equip their ships with expensive modules? Perhaps you'd like to turn a trading corporation into an empire, utilising your wealth from the trade routes to hiring a mercenary corporation for seizing territory. Or do you want to earn a high place in your corporation and be elected as Fleet Commander, calling the shots and directing your peers in battles across the stars. The choice is yours. You don't grind to watch your statistics go up, you work toward a dream you set out for yourself. Every level, lump of cash and item is just a step in the direction you pointed yourself in.

For instance, any of my dreams or goals in Runescape would have consisted of some level. A level listed on a hiscore. Like the other tens of thousands on the hiscore tables above and below me. People don't speak of me as someone who made stellar changes in the game's history. Your goals and dreams aren't nearly as significant because thousands of people have already gotten there before you.

For instance, my dream in EVE is to be financially stable, fit mining lasers to a what is intended to be a sniping battleship and mine asteroids with it and one day, be at the head of a fleet in a carrier loaded with at least 50 exotic dancers and plenty of alchohol. Because I can. Why should I work to a ship? Or work for money? I want to do something unique with the existing game mechanics that too few others have thought of.

That is a sandbox.

Regards, IVIilitarus

News from the Front

2011-01-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

@Lady Dragon

My Trial expired sometime more than a week ago. I bought 60 days of gametime to get me on my feet. After these 60 days, I plan to sustain myself on PLEX. I suggest you download the client and start a 14 day trial first, just to see if you enjoy it. If you do, abandon that account, start a new one and I'll give you the 21 day trial.

EVE Online has a Buddy System for recruitment. One player invites another player for a 21 day trial. If the new player buys gametime, the player who invited them gets a free 30 days of gametime. Not that I'm greedy or anything, but it's useful.

EVE Online is a deep game and I suggest you read up on the various faction's ships and traits.

Just pick whichever race you like the look of and fly over, I don't recommend Gallente, though. Also, I'm looking into getting permission from my corp leader to let you in, though most corps are paranoid. Spies and such. TenTonHammer has lots of good guides on EVE. Read through those, but the ship fitting guides are out of date.

EVE Online developers are quite in touch with their players. If you encounter trouble, you may petition for a GM and these petitions are usually answered within half an hour. GMs regularly play on the test server to help players test new features. Due to EVE's scale, the developers let players write news in character about major events.

EVE Online's players being mostly young adults (the average age of EVE Online players is 26) and the number of available items can lead to some rather absurd news stories being written deadpan and completely objectively.

Recent gems include these two. The first doesn't seem all that amazing. Runescape's equivalent of the first would be a dangerous clan war wherein players 9 players in 3rd Age dying and losing their stuff.

Thing is, EVE Online is serious business. To draw more players, CCP implemented a PLEX (Pilot's License EXtension) system for people who don't want to pay for it in real money. Real life rich people can buy PLEX, each card with 30 Days of gametime and each transaction consisting of 60 days, split into 2 cards. The cards are ingame items which can then be sold for 350 million isk each for players to redeem and add gametime.

Therefore, you can pay for your EVE habits with ingame currency if you don't like paying real cash. Though 350 million is a rather steep sum, and you can easily buy 6 fully fitted battlecruisers, but for kids with whiny parents, it's worth it.

Thing is, if you bought a single Titan using real money converted to PLEX and sold ingame, a Titan would set you back $12000.

See the connection between Serious Business and 9 exploding Titans? The second story speaks for itself. I for one applaud the alliance willing to supply its players with exotic dancers and booze. I only have a humble 20 exotic dancers to my name (long story). Short version? My long-term dreams for EVE Online are to fly a carrier loaded with at least 50 exotic dancers and go mining in a battleship.

The Noctis I bought in the last blog post has payed for itself and I reached 100 million isk for the first time last night. Even after losing a battlecruiser of 20 million and buying a Noctis for 54 million, my income is still perfectly steady.

Special thanks goes to a corpmate for buying me implants worth 30 million isk. I plugged them in and my training times have been drastically reduced, by up to 40%. Although he did threaten to hunt me down and destroy my ship if I tried to sell them. >.>

Regards, IVIilitarus

Here There be Salvage

2011-01-03T03:30:00.000-08:00

EVE Online is complicated.

Even killing people and taking their stuff is complicated.

Checkit; first, you gotta kit out appropriate weapons and defences for the upcoming battle. This ain't one of those things where all you do is grab your armour and weapons and walk out the door. Each mission requires a specific set of defences and ammunition type. Ship choices, fittings, security status considerations, need for salvage, mission-specific tactics, aggro control, mission guides, potential loot, destination distance and penalties of declining over acceptance.

Then you leave the hangar.

Once the enemies are dead and whatever objectives are achieved, you can go on and loot/salvage.

See, this isn't one of those games where you can just walk over and click on the corpse for stuff. Battles take place over distances of dozens of kilometers and you don't know what's in the wreck until you get to within 2.5 kilos and open up the cargo.

Then the salvaging begins.

Cleaning up your mess is divided into loot and salvage. Loot is just opening the cargo and looking for intact modules/people/commodities. Basically taking whatever they were equipped with/carrying at the time.

Salvaging is using a special device to comb through the wreck for any leftover bits of crap that can be recycled for later use. Problem is, you need special equipment to do this. Special equipment you probably can't fit onto your normal ship. So if you wanna get anywhere with salvage (which you do), you need another ship just to salvage. So you kill everything, leave, pick up your other ship and come back for Part 2.

This sounds like a whole lot of work for a bunch of broken crap (salvage is always broken, no intact stuff when salvaging). Problem is, salvaging makes up literally 70% of my income, the other being loot and mission rewards. So you're stuck going through the extra effort or losing a good chunk of income.

Players tend to use destroyers when starting their salvaging careers. They're fast enough and have plenty of space for the required equipment.

Even with a dedicated salvaging destroyer, it's still freakin' slow. Main reason being there was no dedicated salvager and the destroyer was just us players improvising. So basically we de-fanged a capable warship and turned it into a space combat equivalent of the janitor.

Recently, CCP came up with the bright idea of giving us players a ship only good for salvaging. In walks the Noctis. Plenty of space for equipment and high powergrid and capacitor, so your equipment doesn't fizzle out because your battery ran out of juice.

I run missions as my main source of income, so getting one of these would speed the process up tremendously. Thing is, they're expensive and in my entire corporation of 20 people or so, there was only 1 person who regularly used a Noctis. This corporation runs missions almost exclusively, so that's a bit discouraging.

Me being me, I kicked common sense in the balls and bought a Noctis.

The hull itself with fittings costs more than twice as much as 3 battlecruiser hulls, so it was a bit worrying, but I could handle it. The Noctis, with fittings set me back 54 million (compare and contrast; my entire wallet prior to the purchase: 81 million).

Best. Decision. Ever.

The Noctis costs so much because it's incredibly awesome. The ship is top-of-the line, the only one in it's class and the best of its kind. So despite costing a third of my total wealth, I'll never have to worry about that ever again.

Now I have to contend with the fact that I set myself even further back on my goal of 340 million isk in 1.5 months.

Also amusing, I was salvaging earlier and left a trail of cargo containers as I finished salvaging each wreck. The trail was formed by wrecks moving with me via tractor beam and following my flight path whilst each salvaged wreck spawned a container of leftover loot.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Why EVE Online is Special

2011-01-01T12:00:00.002-08:00

A friend of mine started a petition to turn EVE Online into a singleplayer game.

Here's my response:

You know what makes EVE special?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGplrpWvz0I&feature=related

The fact that it's player driven. All of the T2 and T3 (the good stuff) is player made. ALL of it. For the first few weeks, blueprints are spawned at random out in the universe. Players use those to make the newly released stuff. After those few weeks, the players have to copy and make new blueprints themselves.

How does that make it great? The fact that players start wars over blueprints for a spaceship. Trade routes are blockaded, people hold Dreadnaughts for ransom to get a new blueprint.

EVE Online is a game the players make great. You don't buy ships and weapons from shops. You get it from another player on the market or blow the shit out of some poor bastard in an escorted hauler and steal his stuff.

This is a game where player politics in Corporations (clans) and Alliances (really, really fuckin' big clans) go to hell and back. Read this: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/65475

This game is serious business. Pussies who're too afraid of 'politics' and 'thinking' and 'complexity' don't play this game. You want action. You know how EVE Online battles go? They go like this: http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/10/30/the-largest-battle-ever-held-in-eve-online-is-going-on-right-now/

In EVE Combat works out as; You right click on target. You click 'lock target'. You wait while it locks on. Then you click on your weapons, once to fire them. Then you wait for the target to die. There's no fancy flying. If you get out of formation to do stupid things, the commander yells at you.

How do real battles work? The captain orders an attack. Some minimal wage bastard pushes a few buttons. They wait while target lock happens as the ship tries to fight past Electronic Warfare. Then some guy pushes buttons and guns go boom. That's how battles in real navies go. That's how battles in EVE navies go. If you fell out of formation in real life, the commander yells at you. It's accurate down to the fact that in both cases, the commanders says, "STAY IN THE FUCKING FORMATION, COCKSHIT!"

Go through these articles: http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/mittani

Those are all written by a former player in one of the largest alliances ingame. Just click on the ones you like most, there's lots. Also, click on a few that sound like politics. Politics are serious business. EVE Online is a game where in order to blow up some guy's internet spaceship, there were plans to cut power to the guy's house so he'd log out and the ship couldn't defend itself.

The game is influenced so much by players that there was a corruption scandal earlier on. A company employee spawned some T2 blueprints (people start wars over these) for his corp. We found out. You know what happened? Each year, certain players are picked to go to the EVE headquarters in Iceland to represent players. These guys are basically like those town council kids at school (but these guys work with space battleships carrying 1400mm cannons, so they're infinitely more awesome). This committee pitches ideas because the company itself now has corruption issues. No player trusts the company. We trust the committee.

In contrast, what you want is Freelancer with better graphics. You wanna throw on your joystick and whip around, swamping battleships and beating on the trigger to squeeze a few more shots out. You go to a station to buy nicer stuff to stick on your ship. You don't go to the station to play the market and become a multi-billionnaire. You don't go there to dispatch messages to your corpmates so people across the galaxy hop into their battleships and blow the shit out of some poor hauler.

EVE Online is deep. You couldn't stand X3 because it was too complicated (neither could I. I uninstalled it a week ago because I still didn't work out how to sell stuff). You won't handle EVE because it's too slow. The battles are always boring You vs Some Other Guy or so fuckin' laggy that you're watching a movie on the side as the battle happens. Big battles in EVE aren't laggy. They're not slow. They're not slideshows. They're laggy, slow slideshows. That's what the framerate is like. You saw the screenshots. You take those pretty spaceships and stuff a thousand in once place and throw in voice chat from a thousand teenagers into it and see if your computer still works.

EVE is so player-driven that the company is surprised. Surprised to the point that one of their latest trailers is based on the players themselves. This one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDVEHE10nHc

That's how battles work, but less actiony. Carrier begs for repairs and reinforcements so he can keep his own hide intact. Covert ops ship shows up and lights up a beacon. ENTIRE FLEET OF ANGRY NERDS JUMPS THROUGH THE BEACON. War starts. One side's busy forming up and holding at a gate. The other is getting shot to little bits.

The attacker's commander is busy calling primary target for the entire fleet to focus fire on. Ever get shot at by 150 battleships? That's what EVE is like. Let's see your Freelancer pull that off. Some idiot disobeys orders and jumps. Get killed. Fleet commander doesn't care. Reinforcements show up (too late) and start shooting. Attacker's reinforcements aren't seen. Russians kick everyone's ass. Yes. We even have codenames.

What? You've managed to read this far? Nice.

This trailer is one of the few trailers to stay true to the game itself. Only a few things are wrong.

1. There's no lag. That's bullshit. EVE Online lags.

2. The fleets are too competent and awesome sounding. Real fleets are run by angry American college guys alternating between, "Fleet, shut the fuck up! I'm talking!" and "Kill that fuckin' dreadnaught! Now!"

Seriously. Half of the stuff the commander says in real battles is telling us to shut up. The other half is screaming primary target into comms like a little girl.

3. It's too actiony. Real EVE is like every other MMO. You click on things and wait. The battles are a laggy mess.

You want EVE Online offline because you can't handle the players themselves. It's far too serious. You wanna take on your little AI's, replace your expensive battleship (you lost it because you suck, by the way) with a console command and jump back in. You want it offline because if you marched into EVE, you'd be on the bottom. You like being in control. Unstoppable ships, swearing into comms over the little guy you just beat up. In EVE, you're target practice for everyone else in a spaceship.

Or maybe you're gonna break out the "I like the universe and story." excuse.

Then great! I have DUST 514 for you.

It's an upcoming console FPS in the EVE universe. Here's how it works, in EVE, players can build colonies on planets (what? You think those planets were decoration?) When DUST 514 is released, corporations will be allowed to fight over these colonies. How do we fight?

We use you fanboys with your XBox's and PS3's.

The idea is that when a battle starts on a colony in the EVE universe, a server opens up on your XBox. You're a mercenary. You go with your mercenary clan buddies to fight the other mercs on this colony. If you win, the colony becomes the attacker's in EVE Online. If you lose, you lose standings, reputation and the colony.

You hear that? Us EVE Online MMO nerds will be pushing you FPS Console fanboys around to do our bidding. If we want you do to something, you do it because the servers are our colonies. Without our colonies, you'd be out of a game.

So here's your choice: work up the balls to take on real people face to face in the MMO rather than a mindless AI or roast in DUST 514 with the other 11 year olds in headsets whilst getting pushed around by us guys in the spaceships. DUST 514 is just Modern Warfare 2 in space. Sit around in lobbies and swear at 12 year olds who can swear better than you. Get noobtubed halfway across the map like all the other losers.

Or play a smart game. Play the game where a message in Windows Live can bring an alliance of thousands to it's knees. Play the game where you get to be part of a fleet where you cost some idiot $12000 because he sucked and his Titan blew up. Be part of the game where the frigate is just as much of a target as the largest cruiser*

*That's an exaggeration. Frigates get shot before cruisers. They're more of a threat.

If you're done whining about taking on other people as equals instead of a sever admin, and you're interested in EVE Online, the Massively MULTIPLAYER Online Roleplaying Game, call me up. I can get you a 21 day trial instead of the standard 14 day trial.

If you're still stubborn and want dogfighting in space with WASD and mouse, look up Jumpgate Evolution. It's like EVE Online for pussies.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T14:24:00.000-08:00

Exactly what the title says!

Let the problems of 2010 plague you no more, for the problems of 2011 are upon us!

True Jagex Fans

2010-12-29T03:20:00.000-08:00

Exactly what it says on the tin.

I Got Butchered Again

2010-12-24T14:53:00.000-08:00

And this time, it's serious.

See, this game is like Runescape in progression. It's not that hard until about halfway through.

For instance, in my 2 weeks of playing, I worked my way past the Frigate class, the Destroyer class and the Cruiser class. My corporation delivered to me my first Battlecruiser, the Drake. At this point, the only practical ship a player can expect to fly is Battleship or one of the Strategic Cruisers/Advanced Mining Vessels. Up from that are Capitals, which are mostly pipe dreams.

The Drake is a ship type which kinda has a love/hate following. Like Torag's armour. It's dirt cheap, all the new kids run for it as soon as possible, it's freakishly tough. I have minimum skills (yes, even EVE Online has skills) and I was able to use the Drake to take on over a dozen other Battlecruisers at the same time and win on my own. It's that kind of vessel.

The ship's main strength is its shield. The Drake can fit an obscenely powerful passive shield tank, which basically means your shields are so outrageously tough that they can shrug off most damage and recharge so quickly on their own that you never have to worry about that particular bar. The Runescape equivalent would be your character's health naturally regenerating so quickly that multiple enemies constantly damaging you can't keep up. The Drake has more defensive bonuses than many battleships and can still mount a good amount of damage alongside that.

So yesterday (or today, it's the 25th here already), I learned two things;

1. Fighting a powerful passive shield tank is hard. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to every unfortunate NPC crewman, pilot or captain and their next of kin/families. Today, I went one-on-one with my first battleship. I'm in a shield-tanked Drake, so I'm pretty much unstoppable one-on-one. Thing is, I learned how obnoxious it was to fight someone just like me.

I was putting 7 Heavy Missiles into that stupid thing per salvo. One salvo every 13 seconds. That's over 28 gigantic missiles per minute into a single target. The bastard's shields kept recharging. Every time I pulled a piece off the shield bar, it recharged in the time I took to launch another salvo. I even dropped 8 million (the ship itself cost me 26 million) on upgrading the missile launchers and a control system and this bastard still didn't go down.

In the end, I gave up and lost the launchers, equipped salvagers and looted the battlefield. The battleship had lots of escorts, but I murdered them all before moving and failing against it, so I looted everyone whilst waiting for a corpmate to bail me out.

2. Losing a ship sucks. It's EVE Online, you expect death wherever you are, but somehow, my death was one of the most humiliating ever. Thing about the Drake is, I have 11k effective HP on me. That's 11k damage someone has to do to me to kill me in a single blow (excluding recharge/repairs). Approximately 5k of that was armour and hull, which were the second and third layers of defence. If I lost my shield, I still had enough of a window to run away.

So the only way to effectively kill me was to prevent my escape. Now, the most common way of escape is a Warp. When you go into Warp, it's over. They've lost, they can't possibly catch you. Problem is, warp requires that you be aligned to a destination AND be at 75% of your top speed. This can be troublesome for a slow ship with low acceleration, but they can usually take damage long enough to survive. Warp Scramblers prevent warp at all, thus preventing escape. Simple.

Problem is, I never got warp scrambled. The bastards who got me did so because when I aligned to my destination and started accelerating, I accelerated into a piece of the environment (a small station array and a floating warehouse). So I couldn't get speed and I was trapped between these two, while taking a pounding. The crappy AI tried to keep lining up but it's crappy, so my ship spun around on the spot hopelessly for several seconds before exploding. I lost most of my equipped modules and cargo contents (including the expensive upgrades).

Howsabout some perspective;

When I got my Drake, I had 60 million. I dropped 26 million into it (saved 2 million because the corp made it for me and didn't need much profit). I drained another 16 million to buy the fittings and kit it out for battle.

So I'm down to 28 million in my wallet. I dropped half of my entire cash pool one one vessel. Thankfully, I made a fair portion of it back. It was yesterday that I hit 32 million odd again, even after many, many expensive spare parts and upgrades. I was left at 26 million after selling some stuff and buying ship upgrades against that bastard Battleship.

Then it exploded. The stuff I salvaged was worth all of 5 million.

However, I insured the ship and the insurance payout was a solid 22 million and after corpmates killed everything at the mission, I looted the wrecks and made some cash. The corp leader generously handed everyone 10 million (Christmas gift <3).

In the end, I was left with 65 million.

Short version? These last 2 days of work have been worth exactly nothing. I'm back to the Cruiser I abandoned in my hangar. I'm back to leeching offa my corp mates in missions for income (missions are divided into levels. Higher levels = more payment and more difficulty. My Drake could perform most level 3's without much trouble. Level 4 is the highest). So for the first time ever, I was effectively independent and could make a steady, reasonable income without asking the corp for help every 10 minutes.

Then it blew up. Really. EVE Online is generous to the dedicated, strong player but it sucks ass when you lose.

There's my Christmas Eve (when typing that, I nearly typed 'Christmas EVE'. Signs I need a break). I wonder what joys Christmas day will bring me.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Ultramarines Review

2010-12-21T03:50:00.000-08:00

Fans of Warhammer 40000 be rejoicin' last year when news of a Warhammer 40000 film based on the Ultramarines would be released. 40k's a gritty sort of thing, lots of grimdark and deep fluff, so it's hard to turn it into something that translates well onscreen.

I like to think this movie isn't an introduction to the universe, but rather for established fans. It only introduces 2 out of 8 factions and plays out on exactly 1 planet and its orbit. Fans of the universe will most likely enjoy the action and grimdark the movie helps to convey through (flawed) CGI.

Characterisation and portrayals of tech are fully intact, thanks to Dan Abnett as writer. The film stays so true the tabletop game that the characters and equipment were modeled to tabletop specs, to the point where the Land Speeder's weaponry is as comically oversized here as on the tabletop.

Writing and character interactions are solid, conveying the holy duties of the Marines in a way which isn't particularly cheesy. The prayers, warcries and manner of speech stays true to the tone of the fluff, without turning into a hammy mess.

There's plenty of violence and a few thrills along the way, to flesh out the battles. Some people might have expected more action, sooner and others might like less of the grit and violence present; I sit in the middle, there's enough action along the way to the big twist and climax (yes, there is one) to keep viewers satisfied without hampering the story and turning it into a cheap action flick. Ultramarines is a sci-fi thriller at heart.

My only real beef with the film is the CGI, and that seems to be what everyone else is grinding on, too. Facial expressions and facial modeling are far from what I've come to expect in today's CGI films. Everything that wasn't a face was rendered rather well and meshed well with the environment. A few of the bloodier scenes are hampered by the flawed CGI and closeups of characters aren't quite what they could be.

The entire film itself feels like a game of Warhammer 40000 played out in CGI with fleshed out characters. The story of a squad of Space Marines led by 2 veterans who go to secure an ancient relic in the hands of Chaos and must then return it to the ship sounds like something that would be done on the tabletop by a pair of creative gamers.

I'd hand it 7/10, just for keeping true to the universe, good writing, gritty action and flawed CGI. It really does feel like those nerdy toys on your table came to life and started kicking ass.

Regards, IVIilitarus

The Mining Lasers on the Osprey Go Zzzt and Zzzt

2010-12-19T12:25:00.000-08:00

Turns out, making friends in EVE is a damned good idea.

Joined a corp a few days ago (2 days, really) and found they were kinda like me. They stick to high security space (like real wimps), run missions against NPCs (like rich wimps) and accept new players (like real pro gamers, right there).

Basically in high-sec, you best source of money is mission-running or playing the market (which is hard), so most people mission run. Missions in EVE are repetitive affairs of 'take this to here' or 'go here and kill this' or 'go here and kill this and bring something from the kill to here'. Grind missions to get ISK (ingame currency also, amusingly, currency of Iceland) use ISK to buy stuff.

I'm gonna primarily do mission-running for money but, I got bored today so I mined.

See, I ground up a lotta cash today from missioning with friends (more like leeching; they kill everything for me and I still get a portion of the rewards). I actually doubled my wallet total. Used a bit of the cash to buy a new ship and start mining.

I found to my dismay that mining in EVE is depressingly similar to mining in Runescape and is only slightly less tedious.

It follows the same formula of go to asteroids (rocks), finding one and locking it as target (looking for an empty rock), turning on your mining lasers (the actual mining), waiting (waiting), letting your cargo hold fill up (letting you inventory fill up) and then warping back to station to drop the ore off (teleporting to the bank to drop the ore off).

Hell, once you're done mining, you even have to refine the ore into valuable minerals used in production. Right; production. That's where you turn the stuff you mined into stuff you can use to make stuff you can use. Like Smithing. EVE Online's economy is about as close to a fully-player driven economy as you get. If you buy a Tech I (average quality) ship, it was sure's hell player made. Vast majority of average hulls are player made and sold on the market. So's most of the equipment that doesn't drop often from NPCs.

I say mining in EVE Online is only slightly less mind-numbing than Runescape because f a few simple things;

Rocks don't disappear. You can mine a single rock for hours and hours and not have it deplete. Because of that, you don't have to check back every few seconds to switch rocks. No fighting over rocks, either.

There's no obnoxious 'tik tik tik' sound when I'm in another window. In EVE, most sound is muted when you switch windows or minimize. Oh, sure, there's a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt sound, but you can switch that off without impeding yourself.

You're mining in a spaceship with lasers. If you had to choose between a career of mining in clothes/armour with a pickaxe and mining in a spaceship with lasers, what would you choose?

Storage is easier. I don't have to click all the time on the map to get somewhere. I right click on my destination station and press 'Dock'. That's it. Game takes care of the rest and I just have to drag my ore into the hangar.

Making a difference. Most players in Runescape can only mine up to mithril or adamant. Most players on Runescape don't even bother using mithril or adamant the way it was intended to. We don't make weapons for combat use, we make stuff to grind our skills. In EVE, every single mineral, even the most basic has uses. The most basic mineral is Tritanium. It's the most common, but is also the one needed most when manufacturing. I've maybe mined less than 5 hours in my entire EVE Online career and I'm making a difference for my corp-mates.

Mining in EVE is still only slightly nicer than grinding skills on Runescape. It's still a grind and it's about as bad as it gets in EVE, in terms of boring. It's still boring.

I miss mission running. The other guys in the corp are too busy doing other things and I'm stuck out of an income. ;-;

Regards, IVIilitarus

I Got Butchered

2010-12-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

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

Thoughts on EVE Online

2010-12-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

Absent because EVE Online worked!

Me complying with the title of my blog, I dove straight for the Caldari (the railgun and missile guys who are non-nonsense practical types <3) and kitted out a railgun Destroyer ASAP. I'm actually doing better in a railgun equipped ship than I did in the recommended ship using missiles.

Also, Stellar Dawn Forums being saturated in new, stupid people who revive dead threads, start dumb discussions, post stupid things and in general, don't know how to type.

Jagex nowhere to be found. It's one week away from being a month since they appeared to have dropped us.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Stellar Dawn Forums be Dead and Jagex be Stupid

2010-12-09T16:59:00.000-08:00

All Jagex forums have a Change/Move/Lock Requests thread. I only use it to stalk Jagex. See, when someone is done with the chore of doing what we incompetent players forgot about at first, they have to hide the post.

It's been over 2 weeks since a post was hidden. Jagex isn't even looking anymore.

Sucks, don't it?

On a stranger note, the forums have recently seen a rise in players who can't type and have no clue as to what the hell is going on.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Stupid EVE Online. Stupid CCP

2010-12-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

Reason I haven't been posting is that I've been trying to get EVE Online working.

Problem is, those idiots at CCP can't put out a useful client if Iceland's economy was threatened by even worse things. More than 5 failed downloads so far, on most available methods. It kinda sucks.

During that mess, I've been mostly reading up on EVE and waiting. What a waste.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Behind the Scenes Says: SNOWBALL FIGHTS! =D

2010-12-01T12:35:00.000-08:00

New Behind the Scenes is nice and all, with a life-changing modification to Defence which will reshape combat and a long-awaited update that we've been wanting for years in the form of a Dragon Defender (it's like a Rune defender, but more betterer)

My favourite?

Snowball fights.

This Christmas, I can finally relive those lovely memories of that 2007 Christmas Event, the first time Runescape got a taste of permanent snowballs. I even wrote a guide about it on my dead bloggy blog that got featured on Vaskor's. I think that was the first time I ever got on to Runescape Reader's Digest.

If you're a Runescaper, read the Digest sometime, it's awesome.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Combine Theme Song 'n' Stuffs

2010-11-29T04:11:00.000-08:00

Somebody came up with the bright idea of The Combine needing a theme song.

So here, I'm adding all of my own selections for the idea. The songs are all in the music player in the corner. Just have to find them.

My proposal is to have 3 Themes. (shit!) One for The Combine as a whole and one for each Arm. I strongly suggest you listen to each song end to end.

My selections come down to this;

Combine Main Theme:

Other 5. Battle Theme 2
Epic 6. Revelations (possible Scholarly Arm song, too)
Orchestra 4. Company of Heroes

Scholarly Arm Theme

Other 6. Battle Theme 3
Orchestra 5. Spectre Induction

Militant Arm Theme

Orchestral 3: The Old Republic
Other 4. Battle Theme 1

As a side note, I would like to say that I automatically reject ANY song with lyrics that aren't justified. If you like the tune, find the instrumental.

Full of Pie is Such a Sweetheart

2010-11-26T12:49:00.000-08:00

She gave me a Hexcrest for free <3

Sure, it's only worth like 170k, but it's a show of just how wonderful she is.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Robot Genocide

2010-11-25T10:39:00.000-08:00

The Stellar Dawn forum has recently seen a spate of Roleplaying threads.

The first 2 that got in before mine are at 91-92-179-84679 and 90-91-269-84049.

I dove in and dropped my own. 91-92-178-84650

Robot Genocide was launched recently and there won't be killing for a while. I want to tweak it with the community and build up support for it before launching, so as to guarantee success.

It's a very, very humourous take on giant robot warfare. Doesn't take itself seriously at all. Absurdity is the norm and the aim is to live up to the title.

Have a looksie, pl0x.

I also caught these 2 funnies in Canting yesterday, when the Tasks update was released. Perfect comedic timing right there.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Common Sense

2010-11-22T11:53:00.000-08:00

http://services.stellardawn.com/m=forum_fo/c=goZZO68v45c/forums.ws?84,85,327,84434

It's kind of like that.

Fanfic Uploadies!

2010-11-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

I would like to take this opportunity to bring news of a historical event. And to wave my ego in your faces a bit more, that too.

I made the first Stellar Dawn non-developer uploaded fiction onto fanfiction.net.

A very short series and a short story.

Most of my existing stories are found here, but fanfiction.net has far fewer restrictions such as censorship and post size, so I will be posting all future Stellar Dawn fanfics to fanfiction.net. I may or may not upload more of the pieces from that thread to fanfiction.net.

I'm still getting comfortable with the format for fanfiction.net, so future uploads will be more organised and of a higher quality, as these 2 uploads were meant for the Stellar Dawn forums, hence their small size.

2010-11-18T04:18:00.000-08:00

http://allthingspie.blogspot.com/2010/08/back-to-real-life-and-new-runescapian.html

http://allthingspie.blogspot.com/2010/11/in-memory.html

http://runescape.salmoneus.net/forums/index.php?autocom=blog&blogid=1764&showentry=57119

http://runescape.salmoneus.net/forums/blog/merch_gwyar/index.php?s=ba1599c5ef5900a16f47875afe4fa218&showentry=57138

Stellar Dawn and Fanfiction.net

2010-11-17T05:42:00.000-08:00

Namely that Stellar Dawn now has a Fanfiction.net section. What this means is that Stellar Dawn has a place on the internet's largest source of fanfiction and any fanfic writers for Stellar Dawn now have a place to post their fanfiction where it might be seen.

What really intrigues me isn't the site, at this point. It's the Stellar Dawn secion's lone entry. A Stellar Dawn Story Competition entry by a fellow named T.A. White. It's the only one there, hinting at the fact that this T.A. White may have set it up for us. White's profile leads to his official website and his website says he works for Jagex as a quest designer, writer and programmer. His resumé is present on the site.

This means two things.

1. Jagex lets their own employees enter their competitions (and lose)

2. This guy works for Jagex and that means his story might have hints to the game.

Which is awesome. I'mma trawl it for hints and so should you.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Fuck. He's Back.

2010-11-16T04:54:00.000-08:00

The Stellar Dawn forums, being relatively small and unknown, don't see a lot of trolls. A few mildly immature people, some who can't spell, some who say stupid/do things occasionally (that last one would be me), but no obnoxious little pricks running around, actively trying to be jerkasses.

Today also sees the launch of 3 new tags which are sure to see additional use in the future.

See, somewhere early on, some guy named Quiet Plea posted a bit and left. Nothing amazing. Get a lot of people excited by the news of a new MMO, post a bit on the forums and disappear. Figured it was one of those happening.

He came back some bit over a month later a total asshat.

Started roaming about, mild wannabe moderator. I didn't really notice, this was back before the Headquarters forum, so us losers who dove into the clan-making business to sate our enormous egos left our threads to stew on the Stellar Dawn section. It got so bad that eventually, the first page of the Stellar Dawn section was 1 third Jagex stickies and the rest were the clans in a bump war (Combine included, the rule was stay in the top 5 on the front page or someone gets booted. Yeah, I'm an ass.)

See, the Titans and Borg were having a few minor issues between them, usually one guy poking fun or accidentally derailing the thread onto their discussion or something and then someone would settle it. Pretty soon, the clans basically made peace over the issue and more-or-less let their members have some discussions in the threads. Not like anything else was happening, this was before Jagex started dropping their characters on us to keep the ball rolling.

He shows up and starts telling everyone on the threads to quit screwing around, even joined the Titans for a bit, just to do stupid things at the Borg. Both sides told him to shut the fuck up (in nicer terms, natch, they're good people) and he starts calling it 'abuse' and 'life threats'.

[reasonable opinion]What a whiny little bitch.[/reasonable opinion]

I noticed, but didn't join in. Passive observer, until he either got onto one of my threads or did something really stupid. So I told him to fuck off (in nicer terms, natch, I'm a good person). Flame wars erupt, troll accusations are flung, I think he got 2 threads made telling to get the fuck offa the Stellar Dawn forum? He just kept pulling the 'abuse', 'you're a troll' and fake moderator when he was being a fuckin' dipshit.

So Jagex banned his ass, shot all of this posts out and locked the threads.

Another happy ending.

So we did the clever thing and forgot about that twat, carrying on with our lives. At some or other point, someone named 'It Is Truth' showed up and started posting. Some of his stuff was a little useless to the discussion, but no worse than anyone who showed up before, so we let him keep it. Even made some slightly useless posts on my threads, but I just ignored him. Didn't really take notice.

A coupla days ago, he posted some or other thing a little to close to Quiet Plea's stuff and someone took notice, called him out. I just noticed that post and dug a bit deeper into Truth's posts. Got that same 'I'm better than you, if I'm wrong, you're a troll' attitude as Plea.

The title of this post echoed in my head as I dug a bit deeper.

He's definitely back.

Not much different. He's a little more anti-religious and jackassey than before, but not much else.

Give this little shitter 2 weeks before he gets banned again.

Something like this.

He dropped this on the Remembrance Day thread (Veteran's Day for the Americans).

It's kind of like that.

This post illustrates one of the smaller reasons I started this blog: to say things I'm not allowed to say on Jagex-run forums. My personal soapbox and screaming booth. really.

What an obnoxious little fuck. Want to be rid of him for good. Had enough the last time he showed up.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Stellar Dawn's Gonna Happen in Real Life!

2010-11-15T08:24:00.000-08:00

Or some kinda shit right outta sci-fi. Soon, in fact.

About 10 minutes from now?

NASA's website spat this out, "WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 15, to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory's discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood."

So there's something near us. Exceptional. NASA's got hold of it.

This sound like the beginning of an awesome popcorn flick to you?

Checkit. More at this place.

This'll either change the face of the Earth, or be another lame attempt at NASA to stay in business.

Better be aliens who're gonna give us mech technology and space babes.

Regards, IVIilitarus

On the Origin of Pastries by Means of Bored Forumites

2010-11-14T09:05:00.000-08:00

Space Pie (or Spacepie) is a micro-meme that, I dunno. Sprung up somewhere, and only went...somewhere from there.

See, Space Pie is a pastry. And it's edible. It's name has 2 words; Space and Pie.

Then it goes to Hell.

It's kind of like that.

See, it kinda sprung from bum-fuck nowhere and caught on. Kind of like The Combine.

Someone asked what it was and the community responded.

It only gets better from the first post.

More insight.

First rule of Space Pie appears to be something along the lines of, "Don't ask about the ingredients of Space Pie."

On another thread, a forum mod tries to exercise another, overused and dead meme.

So they jumped him.

That's Space Pie in a nutshell. Space Pie is traditionally given to new players introducing themselves, as tokens of goodwill or used as justification for war between 2 parties.

See, Space Pie is revered. Of course we have a Space Pie Appreciation thread! Well, I just respect Space Pie. I don't worship it. But these guys do.

Respect Space Pie. Or else.

Regards, IVIilitarus

The Combine: 2; Everyone Else Added Together: 1

2010-11-14T08:41:00.000-08:00

A certain bright spark named Mr Wiggglez saw an influx of clans and a few larger, clearly dominant ones (Combine included, bitches) and decided to organise, moderate and incite a war between us.

The Inter-Clan challenge was thought up to foster some growth between people who generally don't know each other. And to fill our time while Jagex continually screws up their marketing and information release strategy.

Clans are invited to an event suggested by a player. Someone fills out a suggestion form, Wiggglez takes a look, approves and invites whichever clans. Clans may turn down an invitation. Once participants are organised, a date, time and place are all determined.

At that point, The Combine shows up two-thirds of the time and kicks everyone's asses.

Proof?

6th post of this thread.

This is why I love The Combine.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Adding Stuff

2010-11-14T03:38:00.001-08:00

I <3 you people.

In fact, I <3 you people so much that I added a Muzak Player for ya'll.

I'll be adding a crapton more tracks soon. Gonna make this a lot more winny.

Yay! Fire! And silly!

The music only starts if you hit the play button. Yeah. So if you wanna listen and read other junk, just hit play and open up other links in tabs. Use one page for music.

Regards, IVIilitarus

The Combine

2010-11-13T23:49:00.000-08:00

I'd like to take a moment to jabber on about The Combine.

See, I made The Combine (we call it The Combine and refer to it as the Guild, we are The Combine. It's a name. We happen to be a guild.) when I decided to jump on the clan-making bandwagon. Nobody else was doing it, so I was essentially the first guy to really make a clan for the sake of making a clan, and be able to say "I made a clan before the game was released. I don't care if it's stupid, but I did it."

At the time, I recall the major clans were were StellarStop, which is more of a fansite community. Really, it's a fansite. There's a link. Visit sometime. There was also the Void Alliance, which collapsed.

See, StellarStop was founded as a community and bunch who would get to know each other before the game. The Void Alliance was a 'heavy Roleplay based/milsim' clan. Founded on the 14th and 16th of July, respectively.

So it was a good 10 days into it that my ego hit a peak and decided to found a clan so I can say, 5 years from now, "I FOUNDED A FUCKIN' STELLAR DAWN CLAN BEFORE YOUR CHARACTER EVEN STARTED!"

Riiiiiiight.

So on the 27th of July, The Combine showed up, and man, that'll be remembered as a dark day.

See, I started The Combine as a Tech-race specific guild to help myself. Ya know, let it grow and crash eventually. Every clan I ever started and/or joined died or I left for some reason, so I figured this would wouldn't be any different. It'll die a few months into the game and I'd write a heartfelt goodbye and join some other loser clan or something.

That plan went screwy when The Combine actually took off. Now I had problems. People were really coming in and we were becoming a respected clan because I kept stressing intelligence and maturity in the opening that only intelligent, mature people showed up.

So I overhauled the thread, shut down recruitment for a few weeks and rewrote that trash into something useful. Took it seriously. I'mma actually run this shit and make it last, because my plan of building an ego just died with a load of awesome people flying in.

The original Combine thread is over here.

Current Combine thread is here, and a helluva lot better.

See how the original sucked ass and the new one didn't?

In the time between I panicked as my plan died and I actually took responsibility for a well-established and well-stocked clan, the Borg and Titan Empire were founded, on the 3rd and 10 of August, respectively and they started snatching up people, useless, inactive as well as mature and intelligent.

See, we mighta been founded weeks earlier, but we never became the biggest or best because our leader was a dumb, egotistic fuck who tried to manipulate our collective ass into making him more respected and when he finally got his act together, the others were way ahead. Wait a sec...

Okay, so short version is, when I got swamped by people who were awesome, responsibility kicked me in the balls and I took it up, building [bold, unjustified declaration]one of the best clans in-non-existent-game[/bold, unjustified declaration].

As it turns out, when I redirect the effort I usually use to promote myself, I can do some pretty awesome stuff.

Like The Combine: The Offsite, Official Forums!

The Combine: The Twitter!

The Combine: The Facebook Page!

Okay, maybe the Facebook Page is a little much, but you gotta admit, I do some pretty insane/stupid stuff when I put my mind to it. Like found a guild for the sake of founding a guild. And then actually turning it into something meaningful.

Since then, a whole bunch of other clans have jumped on the bandwagon and most never quite take off (or get any members at all). See? Jump on a bandwagon first and they call you trend-setter. Do it too late, and they call you unoriginal copycat.

Shit.

I'm a leader now.

And I got stuff to do.

You know what, founding, building and running a guild has been a learning experience thus far. I've been stressed out, I've panicked, I've jumped with joy at the prospect of new members, I've overseen discussion, participated in them, we've made ourselves a known guild and I was at the head of it.

With the above in mind, I can say one thing with utmost sincerity and honesty;

It's really, really hard, please don't make me do it again.

I mean, really. Do you know how much effort goes into doing shit like that? If I knew, I woulda found some other way of getting an ego trip. So watcha say, Combine! Let's not crash and burn/spontaneously collapse or appear destined for greatness and die overnight like the Soviet Union did?

Also, if you look up near the top of my blog, you'll see a fish tank (with fish). Click inside to feed them. That's one fishy for every Combine member, rounded down. We're at just over 20 at time of this posting and I can safely say we have the best people here.

If the fishies aren't busy eating and you move your mouse cursor around in the tank, they follow you around. See, it's a responsibility. You can either be nice and feed the fishies, helping others, but losing attention and love they give you (or your cursor), or you can have a fleet of mindless drones following you and asskissing you at every turn, who never quite find happiness with you.

Thing is, when you're leading them around in little circles and fun shapes, you're not always getting pampered and you might just as well be leading them away from the edges of the aquarium, to swim freely (or if your guild is dumb, to swim back into the wall). And when you're feeding them events and plans, you've got a responsibility not to treat them as your personal army of do-anything-I-say drones and have to keep them functioning to what the community as a whole wants.

That's what it's like to be a leader.

It's hard.

Regards, IVIilitarus

Inaugural Bullshit

2010-11-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gents, welcome to IVIili's new house! I just set this layout and stuff up and stuff and stuff.

Here, I'll be blogging about my as yet non-existent Stellar Dawn character and his/her adventures, pandering my opinion about things and shamelessly advertising for things I like.

So let it be know that on this (in?)famous day, (Sunday, November 14, 2010), this blog was launched.

I'mma start writing later. Need sleepies.

EDIT: Also, let it be known that I was the second Stellar Dawn blog, ever. Mmkay? Awlright.

Regards, IVIilitarus