CrazyKinux's Musings: September 2010

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

EVE Blog Banter #21: The Lure of the Wild

Welcome to the twenty-first installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month topic comes to us from @ZoneGhost who a few month ago asked “Is Low Sec the forgotten part of EVE Online?” Is it? I’d like us to explore this even further. Is Low Sec being treated differently by CCP Games than Null Sec (Zero-Zero) or Empire space is? Can one successfully make a living in these unsecured systems where neither Alliance nor Concord roam to enforce their laws? What’s needed? Or is everything fine as it is?

The Wilds. A No Mans Land where pirates can hunt you down and ransom you, where you become canon fodder. That's the perception of Low Sec. Except there's a problem. It's rarely true. And that's where part of the problem with this vast territory that exists between Empire Space and Null Sec.

As many of you know I've been a Carebear for as long as I've been playing EVE, which is over 6 years now. And as many of you, I used to try to avoid Low Sec (and Null Sec as well for that matter) like it was the plague. But then I began to travel long distances, which saw me travel in Low Sec for many systems. After a while I started to notice something strange: Low Sec is a very empty and lonely place. Where is everybody?

Now I've never been a pirate, so I can't tell you how these folks make a living in Low Sec. What I can tell you though is that is should have been blown up and podded many more times then has happened over the years. And yes, I'm avoiding all together the PvE that's available in Low Sec. To me Low Sec should be the ultimate PvP arena. A wild realm where more often then none, one would be faced with destruction and "life and death" combat at the hands of pirate and poachers!

So I'm very happy to see folks like Mynxee put together an initiative like the "Making Low Sec Matter committee" in an effort to reinvigorate this vast underdeveloped area of New Eden. Not to say that CCP hasn't done its share trying to bring in capsuleers to this practically uninhabited part of our universe; but when dedicated, intelligent and knowledgeable players come together to improve our game, good things can only come out of this!

And in a few month, when I have roamed Low Sec looking for a victim, and know more about Low Sec, maybe I'll venture myself to a few ways for improvements. For the time being, I'll let the experienced partake in this noble project.

Participants:

Monday, September 27, 2010

EVE Online Postcard for Monday September 27th, 2010

It's been a long time since my last EVE Postcard, but the following screenshot, which is my wallpaper as well, got me back into it. Hopefully this will continue to be a regular feature. Would love to see yours as well!

Original on Flickr
EVE Online Dev Blog

Monday, September 20, 2010

Looking forward to the Montreal International Game Summit 2010

Besides Fanfest, I've never been to any other gaming convention. And though I do plan on one day attending E3, GDC, PAX East, and a few others on my bucket list,so far I haven't had the opportunity to attend one of those. But that is soon about to change, and it's a lot closer to home.

Actually it is home! Early this fall, on November 8th and 9th, I'll have the chance to attend MIGS 2010 - the Montreal International Game Summit. Over the years, this developers convention has grown into something quite important in the industry. With Montreal being a major game development hub, it's no wonder that the MIGS has grown to such importance.

So earlier last week, when they released their schedule, I was quite excited. See, despite the fact that I'm not a gaming developer, nor do I work in the video games industry, I've always been interested in going further than simply reading video games magazine or websites. Who knows, maybe one day I'll be part of it. For the time being, attending MIGS, and Fanfest 2011 for that matter, is plenty enough to satisfy my appetite. Anyways, let's get back to that schedule of mine!

So after perusing their program schedule, I started picking the sessions I was going to see. The following is the schedule for those 2 days, with session and the speakers name.

Monday, November 8th
11:15 Collective AI for Next Generation Gameplay (Jeff Orkin, PhD Candidate @ MIT Media Lab)
13:30 The Art of the Sell: Pitching Your Ideas (Chris Ferriera, Creative Director @ A2M)
14:45 Leaderboards Can Suck It: 7 Better Ideas for Visualizing Player Data for Fun & Profit (Todd Northcutt, General Manager @ GameSpy Technology)
16:00 Marketing and PR: The New Rules of the Game (Scott Steinberg, CEO & Author @ TechSavvy Global)
17:15 Positive Play, Real World Gains (David Edery @ Fuzbi, Ann DeMarle, Dante Anderson @ Seriosity, Genevieve Lord, Chris Crowell @ Woozworld, Michelle Hinn @ Pursuit of Happiness Foundation and Alex Hutchinson @ Ubisoft Montreal)
21:30 MIGS 2010 Party @ B-Side Bar

Tuesday, November 9th
11:15 Post-Mortem of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (Stephane Gravel & Martin Rhéaume @ Beenox)
13:30 Feature Animation Techniques vs. Gaming Animation Techniques: Bridging the Gap (Samantha Youssef, Artistic Director @ Studio Technique)
14:15 Cloud Gaming is the Near Future (Steven Thomas, Senior Software Engineer @ HaiVision Network Video)
16:00 Building Your Game Studio (Greg Boyd, Attorney @ Davis & Gilbert LLP)
17:15 New Kids On the Block: Studio Heads Tell All (Ken Schachter @ Trapdor, Miguel Caron @ Funcom, Jason Della Rocca @ Perimeter Partners, Martin Carrier @ WV Games Montreal, Yannick Roy @ Bioware)

Quite a busy two days, but so many great topics to cover and learn about. I'm excited!

Friday, September 17, 2010

Friday Video: Transformers - The Street Fighter Way [VIDEO]

A busy Friday, on a very busy week. So I'll be quick about. Enjoy!

Transformers from repey815 on Vimeo.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Firefall: A Game to Keep an Eye Out For [VIDEO]

I've been following for a number of years the folks over at Red 5 Studios, ever since these ex-Blizzard developers opened shop back in 2005. Though they went through some difficult times recently, it seems that they're on track to deliver a great looking futuristic Free to Play FPS/3rd Person hybrid.

If the recent footage shown at PAX 2010 is any indication, Firefall (which currently has a release date of 2011) looks very promising! Additional links following these 2 videos.

I for one, have registered for the BETA and look forward to seeing what looks like a gem of a game!

Red 5 Studios on Firefall:

FIREFALL is a team-based action shooter. Join your friends in an epic online campaign across a vast open world to stop the Melding and fight for the survival of humanity against the army of the Chosen. Advance your army and character through technological upgrades. Level up different character classes. Compete for supremacy in various multiplayer game types. Push back the Melding. SAVE EARTH!

Links:

So, you want to be part of the next EVE Blog Banter?

The last few months I've been getting emails from a lot of you asking me how to get into the EVE Blog Banters. It's a very simple process which involves sending me (CrazyKinux@gmail.com) a short email asking to be added. Once I've added you to the list, I send you a quick email to confirm this.

Though you don't need to be on the mailing list to participate, being on it gives you a heads-up on the next Banter topic with the date that it goes live. This way our EVE Banters have the greatest impact and best chance to generate a good discussion amongst us.

Let me also add that you do not have to have an EVE Online Blog to be part of this. Though it's called the EVE Blog Banter, only your specific post has to be about that month's Banter topic, not your whole blog! So if you've got buddies that have blogs (not specifically about EVE Online) and play EVE, you can certainly tell them about the EVE Blog Banters so that they may participate!

I'll be emailing you all about September's Banter topic this week, so if you want a head start in writing your post, and have not been added to the list, then now's a good time to do so!

Fly safe!

Friday, September 10, 2010

EVE Blog Banter #20: Care for a little griefing tonight?

Welcome to the twentieth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than me, CrazyKinux. 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

With the recent completion of the 3rd installment of the Hulkageddon last July, @CyberinEVE, author of Hands Off, My Loots!, asks: "Griefing is a very big part of EVE. Ninja Salvaging, Suicide Ganking, Trolling, and Scamming are all a very large part of the game. What do you think about all these things? You can talk about one, or all...but just let us know your overall opinion on Griefing, and any recommendations you may have to change it if you think it's needed."

[Though I was not able to participate in our last EVE Blog Banter due to RL confilcts, I still wanted to have it up with the list of participants. The next Banter promises to be a great topic and I will be part of it!]

Participants:

Monday, September 06, 2010

Movies I'm definitely looking forward to: TRON 2, Skyline, Monsters & Devil

Saturday, September 04, 2010

EVE Online "Causality" Video - Part of the Universal Glory Sweepstake

CCP Games just released their latest trailer, called '"Causality", the spiritual offspring of "The Butterfly Effect". And with the release comes a very interesting sweepstake with some cool prize. So pay close attention while watching the video and head over to their contest site to participate! Good luck to all!

Friday, September 03, 2010

Friday Video: Nashh Kadavr's Celebrity Death Match #20 - Arrhidaeus

I'm always amazed at the talent, entrepreneurship and dedication of members of the EVE Community.This gaming community is full of them, Chribba, Winterblink, Mynxee and the Nashh Kadavr! Nashh is the man behind the "Celebrity DeatMatch" an event where he goes one on one against other known figures in the EVE Blogging Community.

To this day, Nashh has face 22 opponents and survived to tell the tale! The video below shows him pitted against Arrhidaeus, the blogger behind the well written "Cogito Ergo Yarr" blog.

One of these days, when I have a few battles behind my PvP belt, I promise myself to give him a run for his money. I'll definitely try! :p

Well done Nashh, keep up the great work you do for the community!

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Look mom, I'm in PC Gamer!

Things have a strange way of turning out they say. Had anyone told me 5 years ago, when I first started this blog, that one day that I would actually get published in PC Gamer, "THE" PC Gamer magazine, I would have laughed and not have given it a second thought.

How strange the paths of life are.

Early this past July, I got this private message on Twitter asking me if I'd be interested in freelancing for PC Gamer, the Holy Grail of PC gaming magazines. Seemed my tweets, and my blog had captured the attention of an editor over there, and they were interested in my work. Despite the fact that work and family life were sucking every minute of my free time back then, there was no way I was about to turn this down, so I said a big fat YES!

My first assignment was to write an article on CCP Games' 8th Alliance Tournament which had just finished a few week-ends earlier. The article would get published in both the US and UK editions of PC Gamer. I would now be part of a privileged group of writers. those who'd seen their names linked to this institution of the PC gaming world.

After a lot of research, reviewing of the tournament videos, as well as quite a bit of back and forth between my editor and I - still feels weird to say that I've got an editor at PC Gamer, hell to say I've got an editor period! - I gave in my article.

A few weeks passed and then it happened: the issues came out at the newsstand. I was now a published author of a mainstream PC gaming magazine (having written for EON in the past, this wasn't my first experience in the publishing world). The impossible had just happened!

So you all can understand my excitement when, earlier this week, I received a copy of each of these issues - issue 205 for the US edition and 217 for the UK. There it was, my article, in print, with a picture of me. Weird. Very freakin' awesome weird.

I'm curious to see what you guys think of it though. I'd be very happy to hear your feedback about both versions of the article, and the next as well. Hopefully I haven't made a fool of myself, and through your input and feedback I can improve my style.

So If you've had a chance to pick either of these issues, please let me know your thoughts. And while you're at it, let me know topics you'd like to see me cover in the magazine as well. I might be able to persuade the editors if I know enough of you would be interested in a particular topic.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

EXODUS - Destruction in all its beauty [VIDEO by Alexander Lehmann]

Shut out all distractions. Turn up the volume and play full screen. Enjoy!

EXODUS - Noisia & Mayhem ft. KRS One (Official Video) from Noisia Official on Vimeo.

Information:

Halo 3 ODST: Like visiting an old friend

Two games are etched permanently in my gamer memories. The first is Diablo 2, the game that got me into PC gaming. The other is Halo. I remember that fateful night when a buddy of mine and I rented an XBOX and a couple of games including Halo at our local Rogers Video, and headed home to see what this game was all about. Five or six hours later, and a phone call for his desperate wife worrying where the hell he was, Halo had forever changed who we were as gamers.

Since then, the Halo franchise has seen new iterations, some better then others. With the soon to be released Halo Reach, Bungie is again pulling millions of gamers into its addictive time warp. Over the last few nights, I've popped Halo 3 ODST in my trusty Xbox 360 (don't laugh, since coming back from Microsoft the white knight of consoles has performed flawlessly!) and had fun blasting through the dreaded Covenant.

This will sound corny, but Halo has this familiarity that few other games have, besides EVE Online of course. I can't put my finger on it, but everything seems familiar; it's has if I've spent so much time in these games that the environments, the sounds, the HUD, they all seem second nature to me.

So the guys at Bungie may rest assured, they'll yet again see my money when Halo Reach comes out.

Do you have a game or game setting that has that same effect on you? I'd be curious to know!

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