EVE Blog Banter #4: The Game with the Thousand Faces

Welcome to the fourth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by yours truly. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's EVE Blog Banter comes to us from Manasi of A Mule in EvE. Manasi asks "How do we, EVE bloggers, adapt to changes as they are thrust upon us (speed changes, no more ghost training, all the Dev blogs, etc), or as our lives make playing the game different (more time, less time)?"

Here's my attempt to answer question.

Life, ever changing, always in evolution. And so it is with gaming. Even more so with EVE.

I've been playing EVE Online for almost 5 years now, and over the years so many changes were incorporated into the game that it would most likely feel completely alien if we were to jump back into the game as it was in 2003-2004. And I'm not talking about the content like new ships, new modules, new missions and what not. No, even the way we play the game has changed. Any of you old timers remember the dozens of bookmarks we had per system in order to jump at 0 km near a gate or station.

The list could go on and on and on.

And the newest EVE Blog Pack members are...

It's been a week since I announced the EVE Blogs in the race to get a spot on the EVE Blog Pack! Well after counting up the votes, and making sure the bloggers fulfilled the rules and regulations of the Pack, here are the six newest members! They are, in no particular order:

• I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…
• A Merry Life and A Short One
• DeafPlasma's EVE Musings
  
• Sweet Little Bad Girl
  
• Kane Rizzel - A Pirate's Perspective
  
• Broadside

Congratulations to all the winners. Please email me at CrazyKinux[at]gmail.com if you feel that you'd rather give your spot to another blogger! Otherwise, stop staring at the list and get to your blogs and start posting!!!

I'll be adding you to the Pack list later today, as well as the widget on the right column of this blog and in my master Google Reader listing!

Welcome aboard folks!!

EON #014 - Table of Content

I finally got my issue of EON sometime last week. I say finally because I'd been waiting for it patiently for quite sometime now, seeing through Twitter that for others, the wait was over.

I'm always a little impatient once I know the the latest issue has been mailed and that it's only a question of time before I can get my print-fix of EVE. Those one or two weeks before I see that white plastic envelope in my mailbox are almost heart breaking though. I kid you not!

But this was even more so for this 14th issue, since I had written the Fanfest article, and just couldn't wait to see how it had turned out, once Zapatero had sprinkled some of that magic pixie dust with his flashy editing! It is my opinion that I did not wait in vain, and the whole issue turned out amazing!

This issue has seen some great contribution from some of the members of the EVE Blog Pack: Zapatero, Flashfresh, Karox Lominax, Winterblink and I. Good work guys!

I'm still going through the issue at this moment, and will likely read the Chronicles last, as I like to take them in nice and slow. A quiet evening once all are off to bed, a glass of port or Grand Marnier, and a few hours to dive into EVE fiction! Gives me goose bumps!

Table of Content - EON 014

• Page 6 --- E-ON Upfront (News)
• 12 ----EVE Quarterly Report
  
• 14 ---- E-ON Awards 2009 - The Nominees <-- And I'm in a few categories!!!
  
• 16 ---- Postcards from the Edge (Screen shots)
• 18 ---- In Crowd: Ludvik Kalmar Vidisson
  
• 21 ---- In Character: Tornsoul
• 22 ---- Alliance Profile: Atlas Alliance
• 24 ---- Chronicle: Body Language, by David Alexander Corno
• 30 ---- The Party at the Top of the World <-- My Fanfest article!!
  
• 37 ---- In Character: Archbishop
  
• 38 ---- Band from the Game: The Roxxor Story
  
• 44 ---- Alliance Profile: Ivy League
  
• 46 ---- Chronicles: According to Plan, by Christopher Haber
  
• 48 ---- In Character: Azia Burgi
  
• 50 ---- Cover Feature: Modular Ships
  
• 56 ---- Exploration: Into the Unknown
  
• 60 ---- Alliance Profile: Band of Brothers
  
• 62 ---- Testflight: Logistics Support Cruisers
  
• 70 ---- In Crowd: Hjalti Danielsson
  
• 72 ---- Insider's Guide: Combat Boosters
  
• 74 ---- Insider's Guide: Production - Part 1
  
• 80 ---- EVE Directory, by my friend Flashfresh
  
• 82 ---- Teh Funnies (EVE Humour)

War Has Come to EVE - A fanmade video

Sometimes, more often then we'd think, fans make amazing videos. The one below was recently uploaded by KyokoSakoda on to his YouTube account. I just love finding and sharing these little gems, though in this case, this one was unearthed by my mate Ned at CCP. Enjoy!

Finding focus in a sea of knowledge & possibilities

Finding focus. Sounds simple enough. But for someone like me it isn't. You see, I like to know as much as I can. I like to gather a lot of information, which means a lot of links, videos, blog posts, screenshots and whatever else I find on EVE Online. I've been doing this for so long that I just didn't know how to do it differently. I just want to list it all.
But being a full time dad, having a full time job, and a well balance social agenda, I've come to realize that I need to make some choices. I need some focus.

So. As of tonight, I will refocus most of my efforts on the EVE Blog Community. I'm constantly being asked for advice on blogging about EVE, on various styles of blogging and side projects, and I feel an obligation to answer. It's not only that, but something out of which I get great pleasure in helping out new folks to the EVE Blogging Community.

As such, though the Speedlinking posts were great as they were - and a real pride for me - they took way too much time in their current form. I've decided to concentrate strictly on the EVE Bloggers. I'll be choosing 10 articles every week, to showcase on the Speedlinking post. Not 20, not 30. But 10. I'll still cover EVE in the gaming news, but not as part of the Speedlinking posts.

This will lead to another change as well. MicroWarpCast had a great beginning. YoMma and I recorded 4 episodes, of which 3 were published. In the beginning I wanted to do a weekly show, then pushed it to a bi-weekly show. Yet, none have been made since. Things needed to change. So in an effort to bring back some consistency to my EVE podcasting, I have decided to record and publish 12 episodes. One each month, published early in the next month.

The EVE Blog Banter will continue, and I'll try to have one published before the end of this month. Which doesn't leave much of a heads-up, I know. Still, I want to have 12 banters this year, and I'll have them, even if I'm the only one publishing - which I doubt very much!

As for my game play, I've been thinking of changing my playing style for some time now, trying to find something which I can easily do by myself, without having to wait for, or be depended on the corp. After reading the recent Dev Blog, and MalphasWats' post, I've decided to go into exploration. I know that this will be helpful to my corporation, and will be something I can pick up whenever I'm able to login. Which isn't very consistent these days.

So there you have it.

Friday Video: Vexille, the evolution

I grew up watching Robotech during the 80s at the crack of dawn on week-ends, and fell in love with Japanese animation, as well as manga. Some of my favorites are films like Patlabor, Detonator Orgun, Ghost in the Shell, as well as Nausicaä. Each are very different styles and stories, yet all caught my interests. Which is why I was truly excited when I cam across Vexille. And though the story wasn't up to par with the visual quality of this anime, it was still well worth my time! Here's the trailer!

Vexille Official Trailer

Have you got what it takes? 6 spots available on the EVE Blog Pack!

Having gone through the list of members of the EVE Blog Pack, I have removed 4 more blogs from the Pack. I'm trying to make sure that all Pack members are focused on EVE and post regularly. Once a blog hits the "no post in a month", I consider that the blogger in question is no longer active. So I remove them. I think that that's fair, and gives the Pack members plenty of time to post.

So, we've got 6 spots available as of today! That's quite a lot of new potential members, and that gets my EVE Online blogger's juices flowing! The EVE Mojo is strong with these bloggers. Since I first mentioned the fact we'd take some new members (back in November), many bloggers came forward. Because of my busy schedule over the past weeks, the window of opportunity for applications was greatly extended. As such, as of today here is the list of bloggers that are to be considered:

• Super Gamer Housewife Turbo!
• I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…
• A Merry Life and A Short One
• Our EvE
• Articulated Sky
• DeafPlasma's EVE Musings
  
• EVEolutions
• The House Theodoulos
• Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance
• Nursultan's Pirate Blag
• Sweet Little Bad Girl
  
• Kane Rizzel - A Pirate's Perspective
  
• Broadside
  

As well as,

• Biomassed, Perplexed and Langour and Eve Inline
  

Wow, that's 13 - correction, 15 -EVE bloggers vying for the coveted 6 spots!! And quite a list of EVE capsuleer if you ask me! The vote is open only to current EVE Blog Pack Members. Please email me at CrazyKinux[at]gmail.com with your choices (6 each).

Good luck to all of you!

EON Issue #014 is traveling the snail gates of Gaia

It's not every day that you get to see your name printed on the official EVE Online site - twice on the same day! - and I'm not referring to the forum section and all that CK spam! For this latest issue of EON, I had the pleasure of being tortured by Zapatero to write... let rephrase that. I had the honor of writing about my experience at the EVE Fanfest 2008, which was a first, and hopefully not the last, for me.

It was a lot of fun to think back and relive some of those memories in order for me to write that article. Fanfests are an amazing experience, which everyone and anyone involved in EVE should live at least once!

Hopefully with the article, I'll manage to share enough of the experience to get your mojo flowing and get you to travel to the top of the world, in a cold, cloudy and humid realm, and have the best time of your life!

See you there in November!

Here's what else to expect in this latest issue of EON.

THE JOY OF TECHS

This issue we peer into the imminent future (or look to the very recent past, depending on whether you’re reading this before or after 10th March 09), at the building blocks of the many thousands of potential Tech III ships that will be appearing via explorable wormholes as part of EVE's tenth expansion this coming spring. With CCP providing the parts, we ask how the ships will be glued together, how their attributes will be determined and what special features might make them worth investing in when the time comes. We theorise at what might be at the end of the wormholes themselves that are making Tech III a possibility.

FIRST-TIME FANFEST

After one of the most spectacular Fanfests so far, EVE blogger CrazyKinux re-lives the experience of what was his first; from the puzzled look from friends and family concerned for his sanity for wanting to travel to Iceland to meet a bunch of spaceship nerds, to the mild hangover after four days of blowing away every preconception they had. Without giving too much away, we reckon CK quite enjoyed his first trip to Fanfest.

THE ONE AND ONLY

While much of this issue focuses on the future and looking ahead to Tech III, we remember that Tech I still has much to offer: in Testflight, Sivona climbs aboard EVE's unloved logistics cruisers to see if they have a role on the modern battlefield, whilst Karox Lominax escapes the melee and rustles up a guide to manufacturing and production.

PLUS

• The definitive made-up history of dev band RoXoR
• Profiles of Band of Brothers, TornSoul, Atlas Alliance, Archbishop and Ivy League
• Insider’s Guide to boosters
• E-ON Award nominees revealed
• Serenity Steele’s Quarterly Alliance Report
• A chance to win the new board game, EVE: Conquests
• Interviews with CCP’s Abraxas and Lúlli Teiknari
• Blogs, Essentials and Resources for pirates
• Two exclusive new Chronicles

...and all the latest news

Congrats to Karox and Flashfresh for being part of this one too. And yes, to you too Winterblink. We all know you crave a good Carebear hug!

Friday Video: The Evolution of Technology

A new year, a new series. In trying to get back to a regular schedule, I've thought to introduce a new post series, The Friday Video series. I'll also re-introduce the EVE Postcard, and will try to have it posted on the week-ends.

The video below is for the German site Saturn.de and has some very interesting beasties. If anyone speaks German out there, and can help translate what's being said at the end, I'd really appreciate.

Make sure to watch the HD version to really appreciate it!

EVE Online and the week of Milestones

The new year has barely started, and already we're being bombarded with new milestones in the world of New Eden.

The world's biggest sandbox MMO, EVE Online, recently surpassed the 45,000 peak concurrent user (PCU) mark. An amazing achievement when you consider that most MMOs run on much smaller servers - of about 5,000 players. All the hard work that has been done over the last few months, as well as the multitude of upgrades planned for the near future will allow for even bigger fleet battles. I look forward to the days where we'll see 1000-plus ship fleet battles! I remember the days when we passed the 10k mark, then the 20k, then 25k! Now we're almost half-way to the 100,00 PCU! I for one am looking forward to CCP's HPC roll-out!

Additionally, we learned today that another capsuleer had reached the 100 million skill point mark. Though this was not the first character to reach that record milestone, it's still a great honor to bestow a fellow capsuleer. As a player who is about to reach the 50 million SP myself , I can vouch how monumental such an achievement is!

Speaking of personal achievements, I'm happy to report that this humble blog reached the impressive mark of 300,000 pageviews yesterday, as well as 200,000 visitors today. I say impressive because in the MMO industry EVE holds a niche position, similar to the Mac in the computer markets. Such results would not be attainable without you, the reader. So thank you for dropping by!

Finally, I leave you with the latest CCP video interview , in which Hilmar mentions that the next EVE expansion will be released on March 10th, followed 2 days later by a retail launch of the game - published in partnership with Atari !

Two words come to mind: modular ships !!! Oh yeah!!

Video link (Flash embed removed — modern browsers won’t play it): Gamereactor GRTV

CrazyKinux's Most Popular Posts of 2008

Of the 231 posts I made during last year, the following were the most visited posts. I thought I'd share the list with you so that you may get a chance to see what sort of information other players seem to crave. You might have missed some of them.

1. The EVE Blog Pack - No surprise there. It's also the most commented post.
2. 10 Posts for the EVE Online Newbie - That may actually be my fault since I've twittered it so many times! :p
3. Walking in Station Videos - EVE Fanfest 2008
4. EVE Online Blogroll Lovefest! - The second most commented post on this blog.
5. Ship Setups - I need to do more of these types of posts. A goal for 2009!
6. All the EVE Online Guides you ever needed!
7. 10 sites for every new EVE Online Player - Since the day I first posted it it's now gone up to 12 sites.
8. 10 things every EVE Online player should know - Top 10 list are always popular!
9. EVE Online Industrialists will get their expansion too! - The earliest account of Quantum Rise.
10. EVE Fanfest Day 3 - Highlights - Fanfest posts together were responsible for over 14,000 pageviews!

Looking forward to seeing the list next year!

Looking back at 2008, the year of possibilities!

Life has mysterious ways of presenting opportunities to you. Sometimes you're going with the flow gaining speed and momentum to get you where you want to go. Sometimes it's as if you're fighting up a raging river in early spring.
In late March of last year I hit a speed bump in my professional career and found myself with a lot more time on my hands. Ever the optimistic, I leveraged this opportunity to turn this humble little EVE Online Blog and make it the best EVE blog on the Intertubes! The rest as they say, is history!

Let's review the year together and recap the major milestone for this capsuleer blogger.

From 2005 through 2007:

• 61,569 visitors
• 89,582 pageviews

In 2008 alone this blog received:

• 135,688 visitors
• 206,217 pageviews
• 1147 comments
• 506 Daily Average of RSS subscribers (in the last month)
  

I'm literally floored when I look at the above statistics. Who could have foreseen such results! A lot of work went into achieving these results, and though a lot of that work was done alone, I could not have reached these heights without the help of others.