Friday, August 29, 2008

EVE Online Collectible Battleship Models are coming!


Ever since I first laid eyes on one of EVE's ship, I've wanted to have a scale model version of one. That was over 5 years ago, but today, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Today, the EVE Online Store is being shutdown to make place for a new and improved store, and in the process, CCP will finally be introducing Collectible Battleship Models for each of the 4 races.

I first came upon this story when Winterblink wrote a post about some model ship pictures popping up on the Chinese EVE website. Low and behold those rumors were true!

Now, the question is, which one to get? Cause at $125 a piece, these things aren't cheap! Maybe that 15% discount CCP is offering before the end of September will be enough to tempt a few of us.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Titan Weekly #9 is out!

Another episode of Titan Weekly, now on its new Thursday schedule.

As usual, Malnor covers some FW news and adds his own commentary. This week he briefly looks at the Minmatar race and their ships, and also brings up some concerns about Alliances CEO leaving the game.

I'll be joining Malnor next week in another Special CK edition!

Make sure to drop by once you've listened to this ninth episode and let him know your thoughts.

Fly safe, cause flying recklessly is darn dangerous!

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

EVE Online Speedlinking for August 27th, 2008


Well it seems that the EVE Online Blogging community is on a roll here as more and more capsuleers are putting pen to paper, or in this case, fingers to keyboards. I've never received so many request to add this blog and that blog to the list, and I'm all the more happy to do so.

Here goes!

More EVE Bloggers:
A new Corp to add to the list:

In other News:

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

EVE Online Industrialists will get their expansion too!


I've been saying it for so long I can't remember when I first brought it up. Well, it seems that CCP were either listening to what I was saying (very unlikely) or they were already working on this very issue (much more likely).

As reported by EVE Network News, and mentioned to me by two reliable sources, CCP will release a new expansion, codename MIDAS, that will see Industrialist finally get the attention they deserve and the goodies they need! This follows an earlier article at Gamasutra which briefly discussed the economic implications in a game like EVE. The "news bomb" was released during an interview with EVE Associate Producer Arend Stuhrmann, which can be seen in a video over at MMORG.com.

Suffice to say that I am ecstatic to learn such great news. We know little so far. But knowing that something is brewing is excitement enough for one night!

Traffic Jams in Jita - avoid Sundays at all cost!

Anyone who's been playing EVE Online for a while will know that Jita, a major trading hub, is an area to avoid as much as possible. And that's even more so on Sundays which is typically "the" busiest day of the week for EVE capsuleers. Almost every Peak Concurrent Users Record has been established on a Sunday afternoon (EST).

Screenshot courtesy of roBurky.

This is exactly what one capsuleer, Pot Shot, learned the hard way. So beware newbies, if you ever decide to visit Jita on a Saturday night, make sure to make a few jumps away from that system before you dock and call it quits for the night!

Out of Eden: Armored Core For Answer

I grew up dreaming about giant robots, watching Robotech on week-end morning, collecting comic books, and RPG books such as Jovian Chronicles, Robotech, Heavy Gear, and loving all those other anime features (Patlabor anyone?). So when I saw this trailer for an upcoming Xbox 360 game, well I just went bananas!!



Cool eh!

[UPDATE 28 August, 2008: GameSetWatch has a great review on the game itself, and some reservations.]

Friday, August 22, 2008

Is EVE Online for you?

EVE is a lot of things to a lot of different players. To some, it's a cut throat PvP game with huge fleet battles, to other it's a capitalistic virtual world where fortunes can be made, and to yet another group it's a game of cat and mouse where you hunt your victims one at a time. It's actually all that and so much more.

With the population of New Eden ever growing, new players are introduced to this deadly sandbox. I recently read that about 25% of the current player base have been with EVE since launch, which means that three quarters were introduced to the game over the last 5 years. How can we tell these new arrivals what EVE is? How can they know if EVE is for them?

That's the exact question raised by Gustav Malori in his piece entitled "Is EVE for you?". In this EVE-Mag.com article, Gustav basically explains that EVE is
[...] politics; warfare; personal gains and losses; alliances; bad guys; good guys; economics; trade; research; science; fighting; mining; industry; making stations; destroying stations; gate jumping; gate camping; tackling; electronic warfare; exploration; pirate hunting; piracy; and over 5,000 systems where all of this and so much more is happening all at once [...]
It's an interesting article which gives a good impression of what this game is to a lot of folks. If you've got a couple friends who are thinking about it, or if you yourself have been considering the career of a capsuleer, then give it a read. It's well worth your time!

Before I leave you though, I wanted to share with you two great videos I came across this week which attempt to describe what EVE is. I thought they were pertinent to this article, and so I'm including them here.

The two videos, entitled "This is EVE" are the work of none other then Loxyrider, who was (and still is?) the Director of Eve TV. You can tell pretty quickly that this guy masters the art of film, and the videos do a good job of showing it. They cover all aspects of EVE, and not just the PvP, which is something that we often see in player videos.

So on to the videos!





Is EVE for you?

Out of Eden: Jumpgate Evolution Trailer

Another interesting Space MMO is gearing up towards Beta. That's a second original IP Space Combat MMO to compete for the genre with EVE Online (SGO, SWG and STO aren't original IPs). And that's all the for the better if you ask me. There are some important game play differences between the 3, so there's a good chance that the game may cater to different sets of gamers, or fill two different sets of needs. We wish them both good luck!



I found the above video here at Rock, Paper, Shotgun which is a great gaming site where I get a lot of my general gaming news these days. Thanks guys for the great work! keep it up!

New Podcasts from Titan Weekly and Fly Reckless




The two newest EVE podcasts, Titan Weekly and Fly Reckless, both published their 8th episode last night. As usual the shows are short and to the point, which is a strength.

Once all 5 current podcasts start dishing new episodes, it would have be a bit crazy to have all of them produce one hour shows. So I'm glad the guys at TW and FR are sticking to their short format!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

EVE Online Speedlinking for August 21st, 2008


It's been a busy 8 days since my last speedlinking post. As such we've got lots of news to cover, some new blogs to add to the Player Blogroll, some development on an old EVE-based web game, and much more. So let's cut to the chase and get it on!

Some new EVE Bloggers:

News from our EVE Bloggers:

The 20th EVE Newsletter was published over a week ago, but I missed it in my last speedlinking post. Oooh, my bad!

Lots of great articles from Massively over the last week:
The great folks behind EVE-Places.com, worked very hard this week to launch a new and improved EVE-Mag.com; an independent EVE Online e-zine. Lots was done to improve navigation and community interaction, and the results are outstanding in my humble opinion. Have a look!


Titan Weekly Podcast

Resources:

Way back in October of last year I reported about an EVE-themed web game called Web Wars. Since then we've had little news. Until now that is. The tech blog GigaOm reports that Scott Jennings recently left NCSoft to join John Galt Games, the developer behind Web Wars. Read the article for a bit (not that much) details.

And the rest of the news:
Wow, is it me or are you out of breath! Till next time.

Blog Banter #7: Quality over quantity any day of the week


Welcome, welcome to the 7th installment of Blog Banter, the monthly blogging extravaganza normally headed by bs angel , and for this issue by Terry Bosky of the Game Couch. Blog Banter involves our cozy community of enthusiastic gaming bloggers, a common topic, and a week to post articles pertaining to said topic. The results are quite entertaining and can range from deep insight to ROFLMAO. Any questions about Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

From CrazyKinux (that's me!): Does every game need to be a grade-A blockbuster title? Would you be willing to play more average games or should every game shoot for the 10.0 rating?

My quick and dirty answer to the first question would be no, give me quality over quantity any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. And these days, blockbuster does not necessarily mean a great gaming experience. Two things are most valuable to me, money (obviously), but most of all time!

The former is easily explained. At $60 a game, I better enjoy what I give in exchange for my blood, sweat and tears. But it's the latter that's really at the heart of my answer. I'm a gamer, I'm a husband, I'm a dad (and definitely not in that order, yes dear I know!!) , and if there's one thing I don't have too much of it's time. So please Mr Publisher/Developer, don't waste it. I have a long term memory and will remember if you try to feed me crap.

Lets take this from a different point of view. Take 10 seconds to go and check your game collection, PC, console, handheld, whatever! OK, you're back? Good. Now, how many of those games have you finished? Far from all of them right? So let me ask you this, would you have preferred having had bought less of them, if the ones you did get were so great you couldn't put down the controller or remove you hand from the k/b? If you had finished all of those. Probably right? I mean, what was so great about that next game that made you put down the one you were playing?

At 60 bucks a pop, I'd rather get a gourmet dinner then a buffet. I'd rather savor each digital byte, then to force feed myself tons of polygons and pixels. So please, lets add some variety to the diet here!

So quality over quantity , and that means originality over pre-digested oatmeal.

To answer that second question, no I'd rather you take your time and aim for something original, tasteful. I'd love to be surprised Mr. Developer, which these days rarely happens. I'm not necessarily asking for a perfect 10, but lets have some diversity.

__________________________________________________

Blog Banter Participants: Zath!, Delayed Responsibility, Silvercublogger, weblog.probablynot.com, Crazy Kinux, Gamer-Unit, Unfettered Blather, MasterKitty, XboxOZ360, Omnivangelist, Lou Chou Loves You, Game Couch

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

World War CG Animation Video

OK, this being Wednesday, we all need a little push to get us through the rest of the week. As such here's something to entertain you for a few minutes. The World War animation film below, was created by Vincent Chai for his final degree project, while studying 3D Animation at the University Of Hertfordshire, UK.


World War - 3D Animation @ University Of Hertfordshire 2008
from Digital Animation Herts Uni UK on Vimeo.

You've got to admit that the guy's got talent. It looks great, the humour is great and the action keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Good luck Vincent, wherever you may end-up, I know you'll do great things!

10 Posts for the EVE Online Newbie


They say "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life."

With the list below I'm trying to achieve the latter for the new players of EVE. Looking back over the last 3 years of existence of this blog (come this November), I've gone through hundreds of posts and located a few good ones that I believe will be helpful to the new capsuleers (and maybe remind the vets passing by). I know they have over the years for me!

It's just my way of saying thanks for dropping in and sticking with me for so long!

On to the list now:
  1. 21 EVE Online acronyms for newbies
  2. 10 sites for every new EVE Online Player
  3. 10 things every EVE Online player should know
  4. Finding Agents and increasing your Standings in EVE
  5. An Exploration Tutorial Video
  6. Finding the right corporation in EVE Online
  7. EVE Online Corporations links
  8. EVE Online Reference, Tools & Guides links
  9. EVE Online links, revisited!
  10. The EVE Online Blog Pack

  11. Massively's EVE Online new player guide
I hope that you'll find the list useful. A lot of the links here are provided in the menu at the top of the page. The list will certainly evolve over time, and grow as I make new discoveries and share them with you.

Enjoy and fly safe!

[UPDATE: If you want to promote this post on the EVE Forums, simply bump it!]

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Out of Eden: Black Prophecy looks promising

Visually anyways. I don't have much details about the game, but from the video below, we can tell that they've got the visuals right. I've signed up for their Beta, and will certainly keep an eye on this upcoming game as more details become available. The developer is Reakktor, based in Germany. I don't know much about them, except that they've dabbled in the MMO world since 1999.



Sweet looking eh?

If you've got any additional information, I'd love to hear from you!

Monday, August 18, 2008

EON needs your EVE Online Screenshots!

Anyone whose been a regular here at CrazyKinux's Musing will know that it's a passion of mine to take screenshots while playing EVE. Hell, some will even go so far as to call me a screenshot addict! OK, so yes, I do a weekly "EVE Postcard" for a number of weeks now, I've got a few shots of EVE under Trinity I graphic engine (only 1,568), a few more under Trinity II (415 so far), and a dedicated collection on my Flickr account. But can you really blame the man, when New Eden looks so beautiful!

This shot was taken in Khanid Region, somewhere near Zirsem.

In an effort to share this beauty, EON's Editor, and Grand Poobah, Zapatero himself, is looking for your screenshots for the next issues. If you believe you've got the eye for some great shots, send them over to him.

First EVE Facebook, now EVE Flickr. What next?

A month ago, CCP Taera, who left us much too soon for the netherworld, announced on the EVE Forums that CCP had created a Facebook page for its fans.

Since then over, over 3,600 fans have joined the group, and more and more are joining everyday. Additional pages were created, some for the various races, some for the fanfest or even the recent Empyrean Age novel. You can find the whole list here.

So last evening, just before heading to bed, I dropped by to check the latest on EVE Facebook. I had just received a message that they had surpassed the humble goal of 2,000 fans. After looking around, I came upon their new EVE Online Flickr set!



OK, so it's only got 4 screenshots, all of Ambulation by the way. But still it's a start! The images, of decent size, were uploaded between July 27th and August 2nd. None have been uploaded since then, but one can hope there will be more!



Now unless I'm mistaken, this wasn't officially announced yet. If it has, it simply didn't register on my radar. Anyways, it's here and I can't wait to see more.

So head over the EVE Facebook page and join, then make sure to monitor the EVE Online Flickr activity. I know I will.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Titan Weekly #7 - Special "CK" Edition

Earlier last week, Malnor invited me as a co-host on his highly successful EVE podcast, Titan Weekly. During the show we covered subjects ranging from a potential CCP endorsed Stock Market, to balancing game play between new and old players, to missions and more.

Since it always takes me a while to "get to the point", the show is a bit longer than usual. A lot longer really - 3 times! The blame falls squarely on me. Then again, Malnor kept bringing great questions.

It was a lot of fun to discuss all these ideas with Malnor and I hope to get the chance again.

And with this episode, Titan Weekly goes mobile! Yessery Bob! Malnor launched mobile.titanweekly.com for those who would rather listen to their podcast on their mobile.

Here's the link to the Atmospheric Flight over mountains I was referring to during the podcast. Crazy eh!

Can't wait for episode #8.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

The Sins of EVE Online


Over at Massively, James Egan has put together a list of all the evil schemes New Eden capsuleers can lure their fellow players to. It's an interesting list, since all these villainous activities are allowed in the game. I don't know of any other MMO out there where you can make a living doing one of these. Most would be considered griefing in other MMOs, but in EVE's sand box approach it's all available to the more sinister capsuler population.

Check it out!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

EVE Online Postcard for the week of August 14th, 2008


I've been running a lot of missions theses days, taking a break from my daily activities of roaming the web and LinkedIn for job opportunities. That, and working on finishing our basement. So I've been looking at a lot of gates these days, and have been remembering how much their looks got improved with Trinity 2. Just take a look at this screenshot of a stargate under Trinity I. Man what a difference! To think we thought those graphics were awesome!

We'll probably have to duck tape ourselves to our chairs when EVE goes DX10, or else we'll just fall off.

Fly safe mates!

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

EVE Online Speedlinking for August 13th, 2008


Holy Amarri Empress, it's been a week and I've yet to post anything. What's the problem? Have I lost my EVE Blogging Mojo? Fear not avid readers, CK is well and the Blogging Mojo is strong with this one. But hey, what can I say, life gets in the way sometimes.

Since putting together the EVE BLog Pack, I think that there's enough coverage out there for you to have something to chew on when I miss a few days.

Here are the news items for the past 7 days, and some extra bits and crumbs. Bonne Apetit!
  • First order of business though, my corp, Phoenix Labs, is looking for some more industrialist with teeth. If you've got what it takes and are willing to chip in all you've got for the better of the corp, we want to here from you. Submit your application on our website before doing so in game.
OK, now that that's out of the way, let get on with it!
Last but not least, Direct X 9.0c (Aug 08) was just released. For those of you wanting to stay on top of things!

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

EVE Online Speedlinking for August 7th, 2008



Another busy week in New Eden news, as well as down here on Earth. RL has got me really busy with a bunch of little projects and gearing up to an eventual return to work - once I've found something interesting. So even though the list below was partially done a few days ago, I've only had time to post it today.

Here we go!
Enjoy!

Monday, August 04, 2008

The Drone Bay: Episode 15 - Now With More Flashers











Virgin Worlds Link
EVE Forum Link (please bump!)

Show notes:

Episode 15 is here, and was recorded in front of a live audience!


Bring on the Drones:


In the weekly update, CK has been keeping up his carebear ways. Al has been trying the market out, and Crovan has been swallowed by his new job, but has started reading The Empyrean Age novel.

In DON'T PANIC, Al and Crovan discuss their adventures in Faction Warfare complexes.

This week's listener feedback section features more mp3s submitted from our viewers, this time it's questions instead of advice.

In out of game news, the guys have a spoiler-free drool-fest over The Dark Knight.

Make sure to check out the in-game channel "The Drone Bay" (no quotes) to talk to other listeners, as well as the hosts! News on the latest show, the plans for the next show, and info on how to listen live is available, there.


Contact Info:

GAX Online Group: The Drone Bay

E-Mail:
dronebay[at]gmail.com (comments/questions for everyone)
crovan[at]eve-mail.net
crazykinux[at]gmail.com
alsedrech[at]gmail.com

Skype: Dronebay

Blogs:
Bitter Old Noob (Crovan)
CrazyKinux's Musing
The Littlest Drone (Alsedrech)

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Fly Reckless - Another Great EVE Podcast

Well EVE Online must be doing well, because it now has a 5th regular podcast, Fly Reckless. This podcast is another one-man show, this time by Silicon Buddha.

He's already got 5 episodes done, with one pre-launch episode (#0). The first few shows were about 30-40 minutes long, though the last episode is over 90 minutes.

In Fly Reckless, Silicon Buddha covers Dev Blogs and EVE-Tribune news. I've only gone through the first two episodes, but so far I like his fly-by-the-pants style. In his About page he describes his endeavor as

... I’m going to be highlighting the fun that is to be had in EVE and spotlighting a little bit of news, a smattering of my opinion, have a few laughs and do a little bit of “seat of the pants” flying (both literally in Eve, and figuratively in doing this podcast).

...
Here is the link to the shows and to the iTunes subscription.

Looking forward to more.

EVE Podcast Update: Titan Weekly Relaunch







Last time I drop by Titan Weekly, Malnor had 3 episodes out and was working on the 4th one. Since then, he's got a new website, added a forum and a blog.

He's also published 2 new episodes and republished the previous 3 on Odeo. I've gone back to my earlier post and updated the links.

Here are the two latest episodes:
You can subscribe to the show on iTunes right here.

Well done Malnor.

Safe listening!

Saturday, August 02, 2008

The EVE Personality Test - Watch out, I bite!

Industrialist with teeth

Industrialist with teeth

You enjoy Eve's economic model and you find that the greatest challenge of the game lies in mastering the market. System security status is a matter of profit/no profit for you, and you always factor in the possibility/probability of PvP in your estimates. To you, Eve isn't a PvP or a PvE game. It's a simulation of capitalizm in its purest form, and a place where the savvy wins the day.

Take The EvE Personality Test today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

With Wilhelm and Godlesswanderer taking the EVE Personality Test I just couldn't resist. Similar to Ombeve's experience, my result doesn't match my play style - maybe more what I aspire to be than what I'm currently doing. In reality, I think that I'm much more of PvE player similar to Wilhelm. Simply looking at my skills distribution and you'll know what I mean.

Maybe there's a lesson to be taken here. Maybe my true path in EVE is the Industrialist (with teeth nevertheless!). I mean I've always wanted to work the trade routes a bit more and explore that side of EVE. Come to think of it my last few completed skills we're all Trade-related.

I'll have to give it some thoughts.

Friday, August 01, 2008

July 2008 in Review


I've been wanting to get back to doing these monthly review for sometime now, but was just too busy with other stuff, or too lazy, depending on how you want to see it. Here we go again. I'm blatantly copying Wilhelm of The Ancient Gaming Noob here, as I really like his review format.

So without further ado, let's look at this past month, July 2008.

The Site
  • 25 posts
  • 74 comments
  • 15,668 pageviews
  • 10,809 unique visitors
  • 2,203 returning visitors
Overall I'm happy with the July post count, though looking back over the last few months I'll want to post more often about what my main character is doing. Over the past several weeks I've put a lot of energy getting the EVE Bloggers Community going, at the expense of posting about Treenara. In the coming months I'll try to give you more regular updates. I've got a few ideas that I need to discuss with Phoenix Labs Executives before though. So keep your eyes open.

More (Ranking) Stats:
  • Feed Readers: 254
  • Alexa Ranking: 269,182
  • Technorati Authority: 70
By the end of August, I'd like to have 300 readers, be below 250,000 for Alexa and get over 100 in Technorati Ranking. If you can help me get there, I'd really appreciate.


The EVE Blog Pack

In the last month the Pack grew by 6 new blogs - including mine, which I had forgotten to include! I've got 2 more that I'm keeping an eye on, which will likely get added by the end of the month. In his July Review, Wilhelm mentions that he's got an idea for the Pack. I'm very curious about it and can't wait to get word from him.

Overall I'm very happy with the results of the EVE Blog Pack. I think that I've managed to get a great group of bloggers together, with a good blogging momentum. If you're reading and would like to join just let me know in the comments of the Pack post.


The Drone Bay Podcast

Just as it was in June, July only saw the release of 2 episodes (#13 and #14). Crovan came back from his stay in the Land of the Rising Sun but had some PC woes, and this being smack in the middle of the summer holidays, it's been difficult to get together on the regular weekly schedule. Hopefully with August things will get back to normal again.

On a good note, we've done the last 2 episodes in front of a live audience using Ventrilo. So far it's been a lot a fun and a great experience for those dropping in to listen to the show as it's being recorded. Crovan as always works his editorial magic, and the Live experiment hasn't affected the quality of the final edited shows. Look for even more listener interactions in the coming weeks.

Wrap-Up

In other news, after a brief stay at Massively.com, my tenure as an EVE columnist comes to an end. My stay wasn't long, but in that time I've made some great friends, which I hope will continue to be so as our paths take different roads. I wrote 3 features for my Have Clone Will Travel column - I invite you to read them if you haven't had a chance as of yet:

Next Month

A year ago I was about to start A-Post-A-Day Challenge which in the end saw me complete 26 posts, 4 shy of my goal. I'm thinking of giving it another go, and invite other EVE Bloggers to join me in this Epic adventure! OK, I may be pushing it here, I mean epic, please! I'm only trying to get pumped-up! Khant t'you feel da blood rush in mie big mussel!!!

Fly Safe, or die trying!