Break, Break... Fireworks!?! Surely You're Joking...

Just a quickie... Things have been hectic lately IRL and ingame...

SYJ entered ATXI (the New Eden Alliance Tournament '11' for them as dunt know)... AND we have been fairly busy with either that or some very very fun Blops Roams (talk about that later).

As for ATXI its a double elimination tournament with 64 teams competing. Each team gets 2 shots at a win to move up. To unnerstan more, Linky 1 & Linky 2 (courtesy of Ripard Teg at Jester's Trek) and if you wanna geek out on the ATXI kills and fits, Linky 3...

So, we went up against Nulli Secunda on Sat in our first match up and lost. But we didn't get wafflestomped and had one ship left on the field at the end... and for most of the AT matches that is not the usual outcome. So yea, we lost but we fought hard and felt we made a good showing plus it is a double elim, so we had one more shot...

And on Sun we fought MOIST. and won very handily! The turning point came 31 seconds into the match when we alphaed their logi before he even had time to get moving and that was that... It wasn't a waffle stomp on our side either, MOIST. put up a good fight and we were fairly well matched as far as fleet comps go but it was a clean win for us. 100 to 35 w/ 1:48 left on the clock.  =]

[Videos brought to you by Sai Talos of SWI in SYJ]

As you might imagine we are all really stoked. As an Anoikis Merc Alliance the AT is an Empire kinda thing and so a little low on our radar... we actually joined on a lark really and were surprised we got in. But once in we decided to give it a go wormhole and Joker style. You see we approach things a little sideways as compared to most of what we know about  Empire Alliances...

We know that most pick their 'team' and have backups to account for RL scheduling issues etc., but we kinda wing it a bit... there is a core group of guys, as is usual in any corp or Alliance who have flown together a long time and then there are the really 'leet' players amongst us... Every corp and Alliance knows who is their best, and worst...

But we have no 'set' team. We are a more fluid group and we have enough decent to good players that basically we throw together each fleet based on who's on and can fly 'this' fit and 'that' fit.

Even we in HBHI have flown actively in SYJ long enough to be pretty good at the idea of a sorta kitchen sink fleet but with a theorycrafted comp instead of the usual "Can I fly 'xxx'?"... it's now "Can you fly 'xxx'?", "Yes.", "Good, ship up." It seems to work for us and we really enjoy it too.

If you watched the vids, you know I was not on either team, I couldn't fly the comp for 1st fleet and was too late getting Mumble setup on my new laptop for the second... by just mere seconds too dammit as I can fly the frigs in the second comp!

Oh well, my CEO, AINeumann did get on the team and acquitted himself well... and our frigate support team made quite a stir at the end of the second match when, once the field was clear of MOIST.'s frigs, they turned their paints etc. on the remaining Navy Scorps... Then those frigs as had empty unneeded hi slots revealed that they had fitted Festival Launchers and plastered MOIST.'s Navy Scorps with Fireworks too!!

This was interestingly enough also done the day before (don't remember who) but it did not get noticed by the commentators and so went a bit unnoticed overall... whereas on Sunday our guys use of fireworks was definitely noticed and commented on and became a bit of a thing... Fireworks in the AT!?! Surely You're Joking... HAHA  =]

All in all a really great way to end a successful second ATXI fight for us and so we look forward to our third match next Sat.

On the RL side I bought my wife a new laptop & wireless printer (and in the process landed a new laptop for myself too, schweet!) plus all the normal summer is in full swing stuff... so as you can imagine I, like many of you, have been really busy, and in my case that eats into  my writing time... plus, I am summarizing one of our past Blog Banters so what keyboard time I have had, has been devoted to that.

Oh... and one last note gentle readers... I do mediate the comments posted here even if they are open to all, and any comments of a truly rude, unacceptable or really negative nature won't make it to the screen... and yea, this is in response to a oneline comment that I deleted. The very first time I have had to do that in the 2 years I have been blogging.

So Anons of the world, don't waste your time ok? I'll treat you the way we should treat all a-holes... you'll get wiped and ignored.


Fly Safe and see you in the Sky =/|)=

The State of The Blogdom...

~or, “You know, I'm thinkin' I'm one of 'em In'e'pen'ents…”

Is blogging, specifically, EvE Blogging, Alive and well? Sick abed? Dying? Dead? Many have weighed in on this Banter in The Wild as twere…

Begin zee Linkfest…

Ripard Teg of Jester’s Trek with ‘Ancillary conversation booster’;

Marc Scarus if Malefactor and his somewhat negative ‘Bloggin Lives On’;

Alexia Morgan of ‘Touring New Eden’ and his somewhat ranty ‘A new Eve bloggers community site is coming’ just to name a few…

Both Ripard and Marc reference The Ancient Gaming Noob and his ‘Gold is Where You Find It – Blogging and Community’ post… there are many more as are thrashing this topic back-n-forth, for background though you can’t beat what TAGN has posted, very worth a read.

Most of you by now know the genesis of this, Marc Scarus’s post on possibly pulling the plug on the relics, ’Evebloggers.com’ and the ‘EvE Blog Pack’. This took place at the un-coincidentally same time as Seismic Stan over at Freebooted was asking for someone to step up and take over the ‘Blog Banters’, both were due to RL>EVE changes and needs.

The upshot of all this is the following:

(1) Kirith Kodachi of ‘Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah’ is the new Custodian of the Blog Banters.

(2) Cyberin of Cyberin EvE is the new Custodian of ‘EVEBloggers.com’ and the ‘EVE Blog Pack’.

(3) Alexia Morgan (above) has started a new ‘community’ initiative in the form of the EVEBlogs.net
Additionally Foo over at "Foo's EvE Musings" has started a Blog list here, "Foo's EvE Blog Roll".

One of the biggest drama points has been Alexia Morgan’s references to Independent blogs/bloggers such as:

“…independent bloggers are ‘mostly’ clueless about their site security and administration.” and

“…the ‘change of focus’ is to, put it bluntly, tell them to go screw themselves.”

These are just a few examples culled from this ‘Interview with Alexia Morgan of The EVE Online Blogging Community’ over on ‘Warp Drive Active’ by Winterblink.

I must say while I was not happy with the somewhat negative way Marc Scarus approached the possible shutdown of ‘EvEBloggers.com’ and the ‘EVE Blog Pack’, he (nor anyone else I can think of) has never taken such a strongly negative stand towards EVEs bloggers, in’e’pen’nent or not.

I now state for the record, I was offended and still am. Alexia can take his community site, print it out on card stock, fold it all up into nice sharp corners and shove it... ‘nough said.

However, with that out of the way… if you worked your way though the above links, kudos to you… lots of info and even more drama… but, this is all background to what come next. I wanted to touch on a few questions all of the above raised over on TAGN’s site… to whit:

1-Where do you think blogs in general, and MMO gaming blogs in particular, are headed these days?  Has progress passed them by?  Are they relics of a bygone age? Or have they just gone from being the latest “new” thing to being just part of the norm and have settled down?

(1) No I do not feel they are relics or fads. Blogs are still a new thing in the world and I think they are, as all new things in human culture do, still finding their place and adapting to changes.

As for the future, personally I feel blogs will adapt and continue to add to the human dialog and discourse. They are to me, a middle ground in publishing and literature. A place for independent voices to take a longer deeper look at topics without going so far as to call it a thesis, but farther and deeper than a quick note, a gut response or a single thought.

The world changed when the first printing press was created, allowing smaller groups the ability to truly ‘publish’ knowledge, idea’s, news, opinions, gossip and yes, propaganda widely to the masses. It kick started the idea of general literacy, something long held for just the aristocracy, scribes and the clergy, the ‘learned’ men of the day.

Then came the industrial revolution and powered presses and mass publication on a national and then international scale… then came the Internet, and with it a real proliferation of information exchange the likes of which the world has never seen before. Now a single person, even someone of modest means (by first world standards) can PUBLISH whatever he or she thinks or likes ANYTIME 24/7/365 to literally millions of people around the globe…

Humanity developed writing sometime between the 7th millennium BC and the 4th millennium BC. The first known book printed with moveable type was the, “Jikji” or Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters, in 1377... We have gone from there to anyone could PUBLISH anything electronically by the year 2000 (a bit earlier actually, but I’m generalizing here) in a mere 620ish years…

This idea and ability, personal publishing as mass media, is by no means over or IMHO, even past its infancy yet. Yes there are additional and newer technologies coming down the pipe… txting, tweets, etc. … I see these as ‘micro-posting’. Blogs are ‘mini-posting’, single topic multipage websites are ‘macro-posting’ and online magazines/sites with multiple writers both staff and free lance are ‘mega-posting’.

As for MMO gaming blogs specifically? Well, now that depends totally on where MMO gaming goes now doesn’t it? Give us stuff to write about, stuff that fires up our imaginations… and I’ll bet yer ass there will be blogs about it… don’t give us good content and challenge us, and just as surely… there won’t be.

2-And is there really a blogging community out there?  Am I just making that up in my head, or do you feel like you are a part of it as well?

(2) Yes, in the EVE blogshere at least there is definitely a ‘community’ in existence right now.

I say this from direct experience as I am a part of that community, and this post is a direct response to and product of that community. Community is usually defined as a small, social unit of any size that shares common values. In that respect EVE Bloggers are a community whether or not we interact. As long as we are writing and publishing on the topic of EVE Online, we are a community. But, in this particular community I have found a very strong sense of shared belonging and a desire to do more than just send our :words: out into the wide electronic ocean as one does a message in a bottle… But a desire to interact with others who share our passion for this strange and wonderful ‘verse we all live, and die, our virtual lives in.

Look at my blog stats page at the top of this post for example… I am not well known, not advertised and I run no advertisements, not affiliated or (to date) syndicated with any other site(s) and yet, since Apr. ’11 I have experienced a steady growth curve and a total of 40,000 pageviews from all over the world… US, Europe, Russia, China, Australia, New Zealand… even a few hits from Iceland!! and all on one topic and one alone… EvE Online. (Also, as you can see from my sites stats, 2494 pageviews have been directed to my little blog from evebloggers.com…)

This is just one guy, writing spastically at best… on a niche topic... without any overt promotion. 151 posts over 2 years and 3 months, averaging 4 to 5 posts per month with a high of 9 and a low of 1. My blog is, as I have said afore, kinda more a journal or log of Tur’s experiences and travels in and around New Eden, and on the other side of the sky in Anoikis…  I write about my personal game experience far more than the metagame, and as I write colloquially my writing style can be… off putting to some… I care not. I write for me… cause I have to, my muse gives me but little choice, and that is more when not if.

That there are those who follow me, much less take the time to put words to screen and comment, is flattering and fascinates me. That I like what I write does not mean anyone else will and when someone comments or better still, I get a shout out in local when in game while on our way to or from some op or roam or some such… it is a genuine thrill for me… I know then I am part of a very real community.


Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

28 Years of Night School…

~or “BB:47… Is EVE Too Complex?”

Ripard Teg over at Jester's Trek wrote a post called “Don't Do Anything Stupid” and offered it as the basis of a Blog Banter as he is curious what others feel on the subject. Personally, I'm restarting manufacturing that I haven't done in years and finding myself having forgotten almost as much as I knew the first time around.

So this month's Blog Banter will gravitate around knowledge, specifically EVE knowledge. Some examples of topics to cover:

-Is EVE too complex for one person to know everything?

-Is it, in fact, too complex for one person to know everything about one topic?

-How do you maintain any knowledge or skills related to EVE over time with breaks and expansions?

-Does CCP do a sufficient job documenting the features of the game, and if not, what could they do better?

-How does one determine where the gaps in their knowledge even are?

==========================================

No… and yes. As in most things the answer is somewhere in the grey chewy center. And once again we are faced with a banter that is HIGHLY subjective. This is not an Are Missiles Better Than Guns topic… You can compare missiles to guns and bring out reams of hard data for specific ships, fits and situations. You can argue heatedly with FACTS at your disposal… not so with the far more nebulous “Is EVE ‘too’ complex?” Complex for whom? Complex based on what criteria? Says who? You? Oh yea?? You and who’s ARMY ya troll!?! Getbackinyerdaddysbasementyayutz!

Asking if EvE is “too” complex is like seeking the answer to one of modem life’s greatest riddles… “Who would win… Superman or Mighty Mouse?”  =P  In other words, EvE is a conundrum, written as a riddle, wrapped in an enigma and available as a boxed set for only 2 PLEX!!

OK, ok… Is EVE too complex? Nope, not to me. As a matter of fact, I’m worried it has been getting a bit watered down lately…

Since Odyssey dropped I have been propagandizing and proselytizing against the Great Scanning Nerf of 115… changes to the mechanics of Probes Scanning and the addition of the Discovery Scanner that IMHO, have badly and most importantly unnecessarily nerfed scanning in general and basically ruined Exploration specifically.

See:

“To Boldly Go... to the Back ofthe Queue for the Next Site...” and

“Keep the unknown unknown: disablethe discovery scanner in w-space.”

Then there are those such as Jester who debate “Useless Complexity” vs “Useful Complexity”, again a totally subjective determination. Take for instance this hypothetical case…

A 5 year Carebear Industrial toon. Mined, refined and researched… bought and sold ores, minerals and mods and produced and sold hundreds of Dominixes over 5 years… But never even once sat in one, fitted one, ran a mission or ratted in a belt.

A 5 year PvPbear Pirate toon. Practiced flying and PvP and skilled into ALL T2 fit T2 frigs, crusiers and BCs, etc. Learned fits and tricks and ganks and traps… he flies solo, gang and fleet PvP in Hi, lo, null and negsec. Thousands of kills, under 100 losses and most of them in the early years… now rarely loses as long as he can control the engagement.

The carebear whines and moans about the carpal inducing clickfest of research and PI… “Too gods damned complex!” he cries. I want my bacon and I want it NOW!

The PvPbear whines and moans that scanning down ships to grief is WAYYY too complex and time consuming… it need to be EASIER so “I don’t have to waste so much time that my targets have a chance to get away!” he cries. I want my bacon and I want it NOW!

According to all the reputable sources I can find, if a single player wanted to skill a toon to L5 in EVERY skillbook available in EvE today, it would take over 28 years… Twenty Eight Real Years…

Start today, assuming NO changes to skills (yea right) and sometime in 2041 you will Level Out. 2041… I’ll be 80 years old then… Even if you opened your EvE account in ’03 you still will not Level Out until 2031… sheesh.

Tur has been constantly skilling for 2.5 years now (40+mSP) so I have (assuming NO changes to skills, yea right) 25.5 years to go so that’s what… 2038, I’ll be well into my 77^th year by then, drooling all over the senso-pad, still playing EvE… probably mining in some newfangled damned Jovian/Ore hybrid with them there Hyper-whatchmacallit modules that let ya mine up a whole AB… cloaked and off grid… But keep spamming the Ominsweep damn yer eyes! ‘cause they got them ‘pinger probes’ now that let them effin Griefers find ya… sonny!

So, (1) Is EVE too complex for one person to know everything?

Of course it is… as it should be, EvE is not ‘just‘ a game… EvE is virtuality. A real virtual life… and life is full of unnecessary, tedious and frustrating complexity… gives ya something to do and a reason to raise your fist to the sky and curse the gods! Or conversely to sit at the computer and type up a sharply worded email to those idiots at CCP… six of one half dozen of the other.

(2) Is it, in fact, too complex for one person to know everything about one topic?

Probably not… given time and an unchanging ‘verse… but CCP aint that dumb, they keep messing with us and throwing us curves and stirring the pot… Keeping this crazy ‘verse we live and die in ever new and frustrating… and I love ‘em for it.

(3) How do you maintain any knowledge or skills related to EVE over time with breaks and expansions?

Again, simple… You don’t... the ONLY constant in any world is change. Wait long enough and ALL of this will transform, morph, evolve, devolve, be wiped out by asteroids, DIAF and be reborn anew and one day… one fine day, the Sun, our lifegiver, will bloat red and huge in the sky and eat her inner children. CCP somehow knows this and they are making sure that our private virtual verse follows the same natural rules… and I love ‘em for it.

(4) Does CCP do a sufficient job documenting the features of the game, and if not, what could they do better?

Nope… documentation as regards the mechanics in EvE sucks just as bad as using the [enter religious text (book/scroll/whatever) of your choice here] to explain physics… again, a reflection of the real world in a virtual verse… It is up to us to watch the apple fall and ‘discover’ why… again, IMHO, just as it should be.

(5) How does one determine where the gaps in their knowledge even are?

Not to get iterative but… You can’t as you are going to spend all of your time playing catch up and seek-the-truth and experimenting and trying shit out… At best you will stumble on them as we all do… when told by your FC to use this fit “[open link to Fleet Doctrine *ship*]” and your response is, “Can someone tell me what all the Red ‘X’es are about?” IE Get out there, stumble around and learn.

So… Is EvE ‘too’ complex? Nope… but its players sure as hell can be. =]

Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=

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"Blog Banters" are brought to you by the good folks at the...

"Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah" by Kirith Kodachi

“The brainchild of the Blogfather, Crazy Kinux, blog banters are single subjects discussed across the EVE blogging community. It encourages the sharing of ideas and cross-pollination of readership. All in all a healthy thing for a community.“

The Ballad of Pell Helix

The Jokers Holy Rolling Song 
(to the tune of the Theme from Rawhide)
[scroll to the bottom to start video w/ music]

Yaaa!

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'
Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Keep scannin', scannin', scannin',
Though we keep a trollin',
Keep them scouts a scannin' Pell died!
Don't try to understand 'em,
Just Scan, Jump and Roll 'em,
Soon we'll be romin’ Null to High.
The FC’s misscalculatin'
his burnt corpse will be floatin',
be floating at the place where he died.

Scan 'em down, Warp 'em in,
Jump 'em in, Scan 'em out,
Hole’s SHIT, ROLL ‘em out, Pell died!
BS in! Orca in! jump HOT!
BS out, Orca out, Dread Jump In!
Pell Died!

Rollin', rollin', rollin'

Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Pell Died!


[spoken]

Scan em OUT!  Warp em IN!


Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin'

Keep rollin', rollin', rollin'

The killboards are a swollen
Keep them Holes a rollin'
Pell died!

Through bubbles, traps and weather
Hell-bent for Empire.
Wishin' Ol Pell was by our side.
All the Fights he is missin.
Good battles, lewt, and ISKies,
Are waiting at the end of the pipe.

Scan 'em down, Warp 'em in,
Jump 'em in, Scan 'em out,
Hole’s SHIT, ROLL ‘em out Pell died!
BS in! Orca in! jump HOT!
BS out, Orca out, Dread jump in, Pell Died!

Pell died!

Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Rollin', rollin', rollin'

Fly safe and see you in the Sky =/|)=