Fiction Friday: Chapter 12

Note: This is the climax of the story, with two or three more chapters to wrap up the arc. Enjoy!

Previously:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapter 10 Chapter 11

* * * * *

As the door opened a voice spoke, "Alright, hand it over and let's see what he wants this time."

I moved as quickly as I could around the corner into the now open doorway and Rusack was standing there with his hand on the inside handle and a look of surprise on his face. I straight-arm pushed him back into the apartment while Korannon tossed the credit chip to our accomplish and closed the door.

"Rusack you son of a bitch," I said through clenched teeth, "where the fuck is our money?"

He was backpedaling with his hands up in the air beside his head and a look panic on his face, eyes darting all over. In hindsight I can see how he was absorbing the situation, checking for weapons, evaluating the threat, and formulating a plan of action. But as I've said before, back then I was not an experienced fighter and I mistook his actions for surrender.

As he backed up I advanced on him, my bottled rage finally getting free. I clenched my fists and jaw as I prepared to grab him and.. I don't know what I was going to do, I was barely human at that point. Maybe I would have started wailing on him, or throwing him around like a dog with a carcass. I didn't have a plan and Rusack never let me improvise.

He had surveyed the situation and as I reached for his shirt to grab him, he acted. One of his raised open hands suddenly flew out in a jab and turned into a fist as it connected with my unprotected face. My nose exploded in pain. Before I could react he had turned his jab into a grab of my shirt, along with his other hand, and as I stumbled forward blinded by the punch he used my momentum to fling me over his twisting body, off my feet and flying through the air to crash headfirst against a drink table beside a cushioned chair. The plastic table smashed into several pieces as I flew into it.

"Kirith!"

I somehow got off the floor to my hands and knees despite the wooziness in my head. I looked up through bleary eyes to see my brother running over to me with a look of shock mixed with concern on his face while he ignored Rusack who was at the side of the room reaching into a desk drawer. "Forget me, get him!" I tried to yell but came out mumbled as I was still dizzy from the attack. Korannon reached me and started to help me to my feet as I pushed at him to get away.

It was too late.

"You dumb motherfuckers," Rusack said with a wild look on his face. He had pulled a handgun from the desk drawer, what looked like a blaster as opposed to the more typically projectile handguns of thugs in cities and stations around the cluster. Blasters were particularly nasty pieces of work because the plasmatic charge they fired could hit multiple people with fatal effect, burning through clothing and simple body armour with ease. As such they were banned from most civilized worlds and stations and the penalties for possession of such a weapon were severe. At this point I realized just how far in over our heads we were.

"Home invasion," he continued, "you weren't happy about a risky business deal gone bad. Hotheads."

"What are you talking about?!" my brother asked, confused about our adversary's monologue. But my fire was gone, starved by the chill in my blood as I listened to him.

"Burst in here, my HOME, with a gun, threatening to kill me if I didn't give you your money back!" He waved the blaster in the air to punctuate his words, the wild look on his face giving way to rage. He was unhinged.

"But I fought back," he said with sudden calmness. "I got the gun. Lucky me." The blaster's aim steadied, fixed on us once more. "Home invasion. Self Defence." He paused and looked up as if thinking. Then he looked back at us and said, "Yeah, that'll work."

"NO!" My brother screamed and pushed me aside and to ground as a crack of superheated air burst in the room. I tumbled backwards over the cushioned chair and felt a wave of sudden searing air flash over me, taking my breath away. My exposed face felt like it had been sunburned and then I smelled the horrible odor of melted plastic and burned flesh.

As I got back to my feet and saw my brother lying on the ground. The wall behind him was blacked and melted, metal bulkhead of the station's bones exposed as the charge seared straight through the habitation's veneer. My brother's left hip was mostly gone, the exposed flesh and viscera blackened and dripping in blood and offal. I rushed back over to him and kept down my bile as I knelt down. "Kor? Kor!? Oh god oh god oh god, talk to me Kor!"

I turned him over and saw his left side was charred and black, the clothes he was wearing in some cases melted into his burnt skin. He was thankfully unconscious. I was babbling now, frantic with terror for my brother, tears streaming down my face, calling his name and screaming for help.

Then Rusack's voice cut through my delirious ravings. "It'll be harder to explain two shots but I'm sure I can still make it work. I've been in tougher jams." I looked up and through my tears I saw him steadily aim the blaster at me as I held my dying brother.

Fall of D-GTMI

By the time I logged in, the shooting was over and the station in D-GTMI fallen. So head on over to Eve Monkey for some screenshots. Although, looking at the killboards kind of makes me a little glad I wasn't there because it wasn't a battle, it was a massacre. The Against ALL Authorities Killboard reports 487 kills to 14 losses but that doesn't include all friendly losses. Nevertheless, it appears that CVA and holders lost at least 102 Dreadnoughts and 28 carriers while killing no AAA cap ships in return.

I don't mind putting my own carrier on the line, I'm even prepared to see it go down in flames one day. But to lose it in such an ignominious defeat would have truly sucked. I don't know any details of what happened yet, but I imagine there are some pretty pissed off pilots right now.

Regardless, congrats to AAA et al. Enjoy D-G... for now.

EDIT: Another AAR from Mansai.

If other bloggers have posts about the fight, please leave links in comments. I want them for quotes and reference for an a Eve Tribune article and you will get credited.

Wensley chimes in.

Late Edit: Hitch gives his biased view. ;)

What?! New Skills!? Crap!

I totally didn't pay attention to the changes to Citadel Torpedoes and the addition of long range Citadel Cruise Missiles. When I offered to take a corp Dreadnought for the defense of D-G, it was point out to me that none of them had Citadel Cruise Missiles at that point so we would hold off committing them to a possible long range engagement.

Of course, I don't have Citadel Cruise Missiles skills. Which requires 32 days of training to get Cruise Missiles V as a prerequisite. Gah.

I also want to get Triage mode for the carrier... which requires Logistics V, another 33 days of training.

Some days it sucks to be a generalist character.

Anyways, I'm 9 days from having all the Tengu subsystem skills at level 5 for my Cruiser Sniper of DOOM. Fortunately I've been too busy with the war to notice the wait and its almost done. Derranna is finishing up Large Projectile Turret IV tonight and then on to the slog of level V. Soon the Tempest Sniper of DOOM will be mine! MUHAHAHA!

Eve Tribune Site Temporarily Down

For the last couple days Eve Tribune's website has been out of commission. The best techs are working to restore power to the printing presses.

I have moved to another ISP and there has been some problems in the move. Both server and email as you can see. But hopefully we'll be back up as soon as possible.

Regards
/Mr M on Eve Tribune

 As such, I suspect Issue 4 will not be released but if all goes well, issue 5 next week should be fine.

Fighting In NOL

You'd have to have been sleeping under a rock to not know that IT pushed into Fountain and have been taking advantage of Goonswarm's f*ckup with sov bills, losing control of 31 systems and many vital stations.

For a first person persepective of the action from IT's point of view, I highly recommend the Aggressive Tendencies blog:

Bloody Night in Delve

So last night I logged in eagerly after work. I landed next to NOL station (where I had logged off) and sat there for a minute. I was about to watch a movie with someone who doesn't appreciate EVE the way I do so my time was limited. Imagine my surprise when a Rokh undocks from the heavily bubbled undock.

I was in a Manticore at the moment, so I approached to within 65km and decloaked, lighting him up. He started going down quickly, and had for some reason aggressed a different stealth bomber even the the Rokh had no chance to hit him with his rails.

As the Rokh started melting a Purifier zips out of the undock and tries to get out of station range so he can cloak up. I happened to be along his line of travel so I lock him up, point him and spank my MWD so I can keep up. Rokh drops and I turn my torps on him, which of course do little damage. Lucky for me I keep the point active and the Zealot in the gang chewed him to pieces.

Lots of good stuff, go over there and give him a read. (I suggest using RSS feeder as font colours might not be your cup o' tea.)

Secret Ops Are Secret

The Against ALL Authorities attack on D-GTMI started on Saturday and I didn't have any time to log in at all on the weekend. As our defence was not able to prevent the enemy from anchoring SBUs or reinforcing the IHub and station, it looked like my chances to get my assets out of the station were dwindling fast in light of my limited gametime.

This caused me some minor measure of consternation as I had an estimated 2 billion ISK worth of assets in my hanger in the form of about 20+ ships:
- Widow
- Vulture
- 2 Megathrons
- Armageddon
- 2 Dominixes
- Harpy
- Ishkur
- Mrymidon
- Eagle
- Cerberus
- Onyx
- 2 Falcons
- Kitsune
- Raptor
- Crow
- 2 Manticores
- Catalyst

All fit, and mostly rigged, not to mention the modules and ammo in my item hanger. I was confident I could save the Widow by undocking in a quiet moment and jumping out, but the rest appeared stuck and I was prepared to write it all off for the foreseeable future.

However, yesterday lady luck smiled upon me and three things aligned: there was a lull in the fighting, a jump bridge in D-GTMI was operational, and I had free time. I moved as quickly as possible with a goal of getting the most expensive ships out first. The Widow, Vulture, and Megas were quickly moved.

Then, seeing as it was still quiet, I got bold and jumped into the Ninveah carrier. Docked up, loaded up most of the rest of the ships, and jumped them out. Still with some free time, and the intel channels quiet, I made a second and final run with the carrier and emptied out the hangers except for 22 Cap Booster 800 charges and 13 units of liquid ozone.

Later on, esteemed colleague Lumenarious Rex discovered he had a Hurricane and Stabber left in D-GTMI and I offered the use of my carrier to extract them as well. While I was at it, I also had Derranna get her Rapier out of the station.

All in all, a good day despite a bad situation. Next up, the final stand of D-GTMI.

Sidelines

Humour aside, the war is rough for our side at the moment, but in the Dominion age the defender of well upgraded systems have only to win one significant battle to reset the scales while the attackers need to win all four. We intend to continue to fight.

Last night I logged in after the main fighting (which happened during the afternoon for me while I was at work) and wondered how to help. A task came up where the corp needed some assets jumped into Providence from high sec and I volunteered for the job, eager to help out anyway I could.

It was in the process of doing this task over the next couple hours that two things happened:
1) A fight broke out where we had some AAA carriers tackled in D-G; and
2) My computer starting acting funny, i.e. sound broke and alt-tab broke.

I suspect the computer issues resulted from me alt-tabbing like a madman between three windows during my logistics task but I was loath to ignore the call to arms of my allies despite being unable to get on voice comms. So I logged off my alts and jumped into the game. I then spent an hour targeting the enemy carriers and shooting everything I had at the primary, but the spider tank was too solid and we could not funnel enough reinforcements into the fight. As far as I know, the enemy did not lose any caps in that battle.

From DOTLan maps:

Most violent systems (24 hours)

1. D-GTMI (Providence) 1158 ships / 557 pods

One Pictures is Worth a Thousand Words

Image courtesy of my CEO, taken yesterday in D-GMTI. Click for full effect.

Its nice to see all the factions represented in a fleet, isn't it? Racial harmony is possible!

Here is another image taken yesterday. Totally unrelated.

Inspirational Poster

Grab the shotgun and get on the porch! Here they come...

Friday Night Fights

Friday night I logged in and was expecting to join a CTA to go into Catch, but due to various issues it had been cut short and people were milling around Providence. I instead joined a defense gang going after a hostile force two jumps away. I decided to play tackle and got out Backup, my trusty Taranis.

We moved to engage the enemy fleet and in the ensuing conflict I got targeted early. I had a lock on a Vagabond so I decided to ride out the aggro instead of trying to flee, hoping my speed would keep me alive. Well, it didn't work and my ship and pod were quickly dispatched but the enemy Vagabond I had a point on met the same fate, so I'll take that exchange.

The surviving enemy fleet opted to run and log off before I got back in a Myrmidon so the defense gang disbanded. With some restless pilots in corp and time on my hands, we formed up a corp roam fleet of 7 or 8 of us and headed out into Catch and Curse where we went looking for trouble we could handle and running from trouble we couldn't.

Unfortunately, we didn't have much luck except for a Rifter that I used my Falcon to lure into a trap where my good buddy Mae West one-shot him into oblivion. We circled back into Providence and as we approached home we got word of a hostile Ushra'Khan fleet in a system. We started to head towards them but as more accurate counts came back we realized we were outnumbered. As we decided what to do, a large blue fleet ran into us and our FC coordinated with the friendlies to try and set a trap.

However, our luck failed to come through and the trap was mis-sprung and the enemy moved off without causalities. This was followed by some pathetic smack-talk in local by some of the UK pilots that made my respect for the alliance drop.

Our roam ended there with not much in the way of kills but no losses. I logged off pleased with the night's events and looking forward to a busy weekend with the family.

On Saturday morning, D-GMTI was burning. Against ALL Authorities has come knocking.

Provi Versus Catch

Latest Eve Tribune article of mine is up, found here, about the opening of hostilities between CVA and the Holders and Against ALL Authorities and allies.

Fiction Friday: Chapter 11

Previously:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapter 10

* * * * *

The elevator doors opened  and we stepped into the lobby area of deck 81. Like most Caldari stations it had little in the way of creature comforts or decorations, just a few padded benches and some tables with chairs. It wasn't dirty or neglected but it lacked the "spit and polish" feel of the lower levels; you knew someone did a job to keep it clean but didn't take pride in the work.

Most of the lobby area was empty except for a couple old men playing a board game at a table off to one side, and a couple groups of kids lounging on some benches and talking.

"If he is home, how are we going to get him to open the door?" my brother asked me.

"I have an idea. Come on," I answered.

I led the way over to where the teenagers were sitting and they eyed us askance as I approached. "Who'd like to make ten creds?" I asked with a fake smile.

The offer of money loosened them up a little, and since my brother and I were still young ourselves we didn't give off the vibe of authority that might have made them disregard us completely in youthful rebellion. One of the younger boys looked particularly interested. "Doin' what?"

"I just need someone to go buzz a  door for me. I want to surprise him." I knew the story was weak but I was hoping the smell of cash would obscure it for the boy.

"Which door?"

"Just down there," I pointed down one of the corridors leading from the lobby. "Unit 23." I pulled out the cred card, adjusted it to ten, and showed the kid. Apparently the job seemed close enough and safe to take, so he stood up and accompanied us down the hall. I gave the credits to Korannon and told him I would lead the way in so make sure the lad got his payment.

We got near the door and I said, "Just tell him Blodel sent you up with a new manifest," as I handed him a pad my brother carried. Korannon and I stood up against the wall beside the door out of view of the camera lens above the opening. Fortunately for us I could see it wasn't a fish-eye lens so it was easy to stay close but out of view. The kid buzzed the apartment and we waited with held breath, hoping this was Rusack's place and that he was home.

A voice came from the intercom. "Yeah? Whadda want?" I looked at Korannon and we nodded at each other, recognizing Rusack's timbre and accent.

The kid held up the impromptu pad. "Blodel sent me up with a new manifest."

"I'm not expecting any manifest. What's it for?"

The kid thought well on his feet and got into his role. "How should I know?! I'm just the messenger!" A couple of seconds passed by and I worried Rusack was inside contacting Blodel directly to see what this was about, an action that could torpedo our plan. Then the intercom come to life again. "Fuck, alright. Just a sec."

My brother and I tensed, waiting for the door to open.

As Promised Part 2

Corpmate MushskiC writes an Eve blog called MushskiC's Marshmallow Mountain. I promised to pimp his blog last weekend and promptly forgot.

So, better late then never, right Mush?

P.S. @Mushski: post moar!! :)

Prepared to be Inspired!

Like any corporation that is recruiting, we get a mix of older veterans and newer pilots. The newer pilots are not "noobs" but just lack the sheer number of skillpoints. Its a fact of Eve life.

The current war against AAA (note: I know their ticker is actually ".-A-." but AAA is easier to type and read and gets the point across) has required a lot of fleets calling for sniper battleships. One of the corp training goals for all pilots is to train for tech II fitted sniper battleships and sometimes younger players will have all the skills trained for tech II tanking and flying a battleship but lack that last level of Large XXXX Turret V to get those tech II guns.

"How about tech I best named guns? I can reach the required range that way."

"How about I'll just fly support and train other skills?"

"Man, 25 days..."

Yes, its a long skill to train. But here is why we do it.

*start inspirational music*

Tech II Sniper Battleships win battles, and thus win wars. They are the kings of the grid. Tech I might match the range but the DPS is so anemic that you're simply inflating the numbers but not the effectiveness of the fleet. Support fleets are important, but without enough sniper battleships support has nothing to do except die. And there are other advantages to training that level V skill:

1) Tech II weapons get a damage increase of 2% per level of specialization skill even for regular tech I ammo.

2) It opens up not only tech II long range weapons but tech II short range weapons which means more DPS or the option of using long range ammo in short range guns for more tactical flexibility.

3) Your skills are transferable to any alliance in the game should you move on. It will be something you come back to again and again while living in null sec.

*end inspirational music*

This post sounded a lot more inspirational in my head than it does on paper. Sorry, sometimes post ideas just don't work. Carry on.

Screenshot Dump

Here are some selected screenshots from the past month or so. As usual, click to embiggen.

I really liked the Armageddon warping through space. This is the infamous Memories of Mynxee which is still alive and kicking, much like her namesake.



Just a shot of an alt in the rifter checking out the new planets and the graphical effects after Dominion landed. Love planets with rings.



Getting recognized is always a hoot. Shout out to Helena Khan for making my day that day.


POS rep op, I'm the pilot in the Armageddon (Memories of Mynxee again) getting fed capacitor from the Guardian logistics ships.


Here is a battleship fleet rallying at a POS during the initial phase of the incursion into Catch.


Here is Max and myself in our corporate dreadnoughts waiting for a cyno. The dreadnought I am in was christened Silverbullet, which is good because I refuse to fly the one called Bun Bun into combat.


Here we are pounding on an infrastructure hub in SV5.


And from Star Trek Online, here is my Miranda class Light Cruiser prior to visiting the ship customization interface...


...And here it is afterwards. A more classic look with darker colours. The USS Ninveah flies again!

Tempest Versus Maelstrom - Sniper Configuration

As Derranna approaches Minmatar battleships and tech II projectiles, the question looms in my mind of which would be better, a tier 2 Tempest or a tier 3 Maelstrom? In the other three factions the tier 2 battleship is the long range ship while the tier 3 is the heavy tanking high damage ship (the Rokh being an exception as it matches the range of the Raven instead of getting a damage boost to compensate for the poor performance of missiles in fleet sniping scenarios). Does the same pattern hold for Minmatar?

Short answer: no.

Long answer:
Right from the descriptions of the two battleships we see that neither get a range bonus. The Tempest gets a rate of fire and damage bonus (both 5%) while the Maelstrom only gets a rate of fire bonus (5%) along with a yucky shield boosting bonus (which might be good for PvE or small gang warfare, but sucks in fleets). However, the Tempest only has 6 turret hardpoints (which is equivalent to 7.5 with Minmatar Battleship skill at V) to the Maelstrom's 8 hardpoints.

Let's look at the "Corporate/Alliance" approved Tempest setup, and a similar Maelstrom setup.

Tempest:



Maelstrom:

As you can see, the range is the same as expected, but the big difference appears to be that the Tempest has slightly more raw Effective Hitpoints while the Maelstrom boasts more DPS. The Tempest is also more agile even with the Trimark rigs and has a significantly smaller sig radius.

Couple that with the cost, and I have to say I'd probably pick the Tempest over the Maelstrom for sniper fleets. The extra DPS is just not worth it in this context. For PvE, I'm willing to bet a properly setup Maelstrom would be far superior.

Star Trek Online Beta: Open Space

When we last left our intrepid hero Acting Captain Kirith Kodachi, he had finished the tutorial missions and had arrived at Earth Spacedock, the starting "town" if you will where things can be bought and sold and official missions are handed out.

I visited the NPCs you need to talk to to get moving and explored the stardock some. A lot of the lag/choppiness issues experience in ground form were gone and I boosted up the graphic detail a bit and still had a smooth experience. The loading times between levels of the stardock were not as severe as previously experienced with the average being about 30 seconds; still longer than I would like. I really hate the turbolifts for getting up and down: you can't go to any turbo lift and choose to go up or down a level, each one takes you one direction. I accidently when down one when I wanted to go up and I couldn't be arsed to go through the long loading screens two more times to get where I wanted to go. So I ignored the official quest giver and beamed out to my ship instead. Time to explore!

Side note: the ship customization is really cool. You can choose from different styles to put your ship together and different colour markings, very sexy. I know a lot of Eve pilots would kill for something similar. But I question the performance of these highly customizable models as every time you enter a zone you need to load the model for everybody else's ship.

Once in space I was able to warp out and enter "Sector Space" which is basically a big map you move around like in normal space but represents you warping at high speed to planets, other ships, markers, starbases, etc which all represent "instances". The first one that was near was Wolf 359 but it was nothing to do other than to look at hundreds of old Federation wrecks and watch other players warp in, move around, decide there is nothing to do, and warp out. Which is what I did.

Next I went to a solar system and stumbled into a four ship instance where we fight Orion pirates. Oh goody.

One thing I'll give STO, the space combat looks pretty. Since all weapons only work within 10 km (and are most effective at point blank range) you get to see up close the enemy ships and your own ships. Its very much like Starfleet Command: use phasers to deplete shields on a facing and then plow torpedoes into the gap. Its all very simple and a little frenetic; but performance was good and smooth. I can see how ships with more "slots" for weapons and special abilities can be fun later on even if the simple combat now in the starter ship is not all that thrilling (much like Eve combat in the beginning is not that involved either).

Everything is instanced. Everything. You even have the option of switching instances for what I assume is meeting up with friends. In the instance against the pirates I was grouped with three other players. We didn't coordinate nor talk, not that we had to, the enemy was very weak. In a harder scenario we'd have to work together somehow but I'm not sure how to do it as I couldn't tell if the chat window was localized to the instance or not. I assume so.

Sometimes when enemy ships blow up they leave little glowing things to pick up which are often new items for your ship or things to sell. You can completely revamp your ship's setup anywhere, no spacedock required; after beating the pirates I put a new weapon one and moved my torpedoes to a aft hardpoint. Not realistic but not much in this game is, much like Star Trek itself to be honest. As for the drops I wondered if I was stealing from the other players in the instance by taking them and if it pissed them off. Not that the instance doesn't repeat every time you warp in, I suspect.

All in all the ship to ship combat is fun but shallow. Yeah, the hot-bar button pressing and "combos" of abilities will take some skills to manage at the higher levels, but there is no grander scale of combat such as maneuvuring for position and setting traps before the fighting even begins. You warp in, knife fight, collect loot and experience. If you die it means nothing: so far you simply respawn. All in all it means nothing.

For a casual player this will probably be very attractive, a no-thinking-required space combat game that is pretty and gives the feeling of progression to bigger and better ships. I'm sure some of the more advanced space scenarios are quite involved and challenging requiring coordination and careful adherence to scripts in order to successfully complete. I'm sure the PvP component will be fun and pretty and ultimately meaningless with higher level players winning most of the time against lower level players with no need to apply week-spanning strategies or logistic lines.

So my official recommendation? If you are a huge Trek fan this is the game for you. If you want a simple space combat game with no consequences and low difficulty level, this is the game for you.

If you want a deep and involving universe that changes from player actions and feels like a big single real world, with deep strategic combat and player wars that span months if not years, Star Trek Online is NOT for you.

Bottom line: STO is not a threat to Eve in the long term. The players that will enjoy and stick with STO are not the ones that would have stuck and made a difference in Eve in the first place. Will I subscribe? Most likely no; its more shallow than I expected and, to be honest, not very well implemented in a lot of areas that will annoy the hell out of me. I'll probably check it out six months down the road though, see how its doing then.

Epic Rant

Helicity Boson posted an epic rant this morning:

And that, my friends, is what actually made me mad about EVE for the very first time.
If you are too fucking retarded, not to realize, the two simple facts that:

• Ganking in a video game IS NOT EQUAL to the genocide of 6 million jews.
• Hitler and Stalin ARE NOT compatible with eachother in any way or form.

Then I hate your guts, and you should be fucking reading a book instead of destroying your remaining braincells staring at a mining laser or Worlds Collide 4.
WHAT THE CHRIST MAN? Life is too short to waste it like that, have some fucking fun, don’t play a game to perform a task more boring than flipping burgers, a task so SHITTY most people aren’t even at the keyboard to perform it!?
But if you say that, what happens NEXT is really going to blow your mind. You see, now you have insulted “their way of life”. Way of life? YOU HAVE NO LIFE YOU DUMB COCKSUCKER.
And when you even imply, in  a rational and friendly manner that maybe they could change their behaviour slightly, to improve their own chances in the game. Well… you get called hitler by angry space nuns belonging to a make-believe-unrecognized-religion, and some other WalMart employee wishes Bowel Cancer on you.
You are all psychotic aspergers sufferers. Seek. professional. help.

Read the whole thing. Its hilarious and oh-so-true at the same time.

Big Gunz

Last night I logged in for my weekly long session of Eve (long being 2-3 hours for me sadly) and I immediately brought up fleet finder. God, that thing is the best part of Dominion. I quickly found a Battleship sniper and support fleet, and I joined up even though they weren't facing any hostiles and were just reinforcing a POS and some POS modules. Boring maybe, but I'm a team player, yo.




I don't mind the POS bashing so much as it gives me time to chat with corpies and people in other channels that I don't normally have time to spare for in real PvP. Hence last night's impromptu blog post from within game. Moondoggie browser is the best part of Dominion besides the fleet finder.

After an hour or so the call went up for dreadnought pilots to help reinforce the infrastructure hub in the system as we had successfully deployed Sov Blockade Units on the gates and made it vulnerable. Max said he was going to jump in a Phoenix to help out and offered me use of a corporate Phoenix if I wanted to join him. I deliberated for 5 seconds; I was helping already in fleet and the Megathron was far more replaceable than a dreadnought should AAA decide to pay a visit, but the lure of using my dreadnought skills overtook my caution and I agreed. I dropped one fleet, joined another, and went back to base to "suit up".




It was an in and out job. Our dreadnought fleet only required one siege cycle to reinforce the infrastructure hub and once done we successfully jumped back to base and docked up. I sent the borrowed dreadnought back to the corporate hangers and logged off feeling useful. No kill mails but not all contributions are measured in wrecks.

I got some screenshots I'll share with you later on a slow posting day this week.

As Promised

Lumenarious Rex > Hey Kirith
Lumenarious Rex > Still no blog love
Lumenarious Rex > what the hell?
Lumenarious Rex > /emote runs into the corner and cries
Kirith Kodachi > Lumenarious: what was it I was supposed to write for you again?
Lumenarious Rex > "Lumenarious Rex is a bad mo-fo who is cooler than Max"
Lumenarious Rex > :)
Kirith Kodachi > Consider it done.

Items One And Two

Item One:

In E-ON magazine #18 you will be able to read my latest Test Flight article on Black Ops Battleships.

Funny story about this one. When Zapatero tapped me to write it after issue #17 came out he requested I write about the new upcoming Supercarriers that were being tested for Dominion. The deadline for the article submission was a week before Dominion came out so it would mean a lot of test server research and changing goalposts but I readily agreed. I spent some time setting up the flow of the article and how it would be different from previous test flights since there had already been a Mothership testflight and we didn't want to tread the same ground.

However, as I was getting ready to fill out the draft the whole Not-So-Supercarrier fiasco / change in direction by CCP near the end of development meant I was basically starting from scratch and then the whole supercarrier concept got shelved for Dominion completely! Faced with an article to write for a deadline one week and a bit away, I contacted Zapatero and and offered to go to the Black Ops ships that we had considered for the E-ON #17 test flight last spring. I had some late nights writing that article but I managed and last night it was all worth it as I got paid.

Item Two:

On the couch with the laptop and wife idly chit-chatting and browsing TV, I booted up Eve and broke out Kla'Strit to work on his security status for half an hour. Moving from system to system, killing a battleship rat, moving on. Nothing strenuous.

The last system to visit has one guy in local who is a regular for that area and I warp to a belt to see some wrecks of his and a new spawn. Three battleships. One of them a True Sansha faction spawn.

Question: is it unethical to jump into a system, kill a faction spawn before someone who practically lives there gets a chance, and then jump out? 'Cause that's exactly what I did.

As I was warping to the gate to leave the following conversation happens in local chat:
XXXXX > oh that's simply unfair
Kla'strit > sorry
XXXXX > you planning on salvaging it?
Kla'strit > No go ahead
Kla'strit > the drop was nothing special
Kla'strit > a faction hardener and plating , no Nightmare bpc or anthing
Kla'strit > cheers
XXXXX > o/

As chat shows, the faction drop was nothing special. Man, I was hoping for a Nightmare BPC. Just a True Sansha Thermic Hardener and Thermic Plating, and a Large Radio crystal. Sigh. Oh well, better than a kick to the teeth.

Star Trek Online Beta: Space Combat

I had a quick 30 minutes last night before bed so I spun up the game again to try out that space combat.

Cryptic didn't have to do much to sell me on this part of the game. All they had to do was take the best parts of Starfleet Command (1999) and turn it into multiplayer, perhaps some improved graphics, and I'd like it. In a nutshell, they succeeded.

It is so much like Starfleet Command that it feels like a true successor to the game. The weapons with fire arcs, shield facings, range indicators, etc are all there with the added benefit of the third dimension. Simplified a bit I'm sure but the concept is correct and feels right to me.

Now I did have some quibbles, things from Eve that I wish STO had. Like an overview to see everything nearby instead of having to pan around the camera, or an approach button to bring the ship around instead of manually using keys to turn, or turning using doubleclicks of the mouse. It would be nice if I could tell it to keep firing without having to press the button every shot too. But nothing showstopping. And a few features I wish Eve would steal like using the WASD keys for general turning and pitch.

Overall its a nice simplistic space game in the Star Trek vein. It won't replace the visceral feel of Eve's tactical combat but it looks like the nice drop in space combat for when time is short. So far.

I had enough time to finish the "Kill the Four Rats...er... Probes" mission and I was wondering when the "tutorial" would be complete and I could explore space movement and combat in a less rowdy setting (the starter area is a battlezone between the Federation and Borg) when I got the next message: beam down to the colony and help out there.

*Groan* I'm an acting captain of a fricking starship! I shouldn't be beaming down willy-nilly to a planet surface during fighting! That's what underlings are for! Sigh. I got a bad feeling about this.

Time to dig out my old copy of Starfleet Command.

Star Trek Online - Beta - Ground Combat

I got in the beta due to pre-ordering the game so I downloaded it on Tuesday. Today I was at home watching the twins as my wife was laid up with a nasty pinched nerve due to the pregnancy (protip: pregnancy not all that fun) and after the boys went down for a nap and I had cleaned up the place a bit, I sat down for 45 minutes to try out the game.

The character creation is fantastic with lots of options for everything from race to badge insigna and boots. I, of course, created a human called Ensign Kodachi, first name Kirith.

I was disappointed with the character controls. The camera was annoying, turning in the direction I wanted to move instead of facing a single direciton... unless something was targeted which I didn't get at first. The animations looked... off. During one fight watching the NPCs bounce around like jackrabbits with springs in their boots to get over obstacles was very offputting. And I ran everywhere; dude slow down! It didn't look like a Triple-A game from 2010 in my humble opinion.

Then again, I just came off of finishing the awesome Batman: Arkham Asylum last week so maybe I'm just spoiled and STO is following MMO standards that I'm not used to because of Eve being so different. Also, I understand MMOs have to make allowances for network latency but still... I think they could do better.

But I'm not here for the ground combat. Indeed, I hope to eskew all ground based missions if at all possible (although I get the feeling that it will not be). So as I got to my light cruiser USS Ninveah (naturally) I quit the game as my time was up. Ah, the hazards of being on call to waking toddlers. Tonight if Eve is quite I shall continue my investigation of the part that matters: ship to ship combat.

2010 - The Year That Will Be

Welcome to the fourteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by 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!

The first banter of 2010 comes to us from the EVE Blog Father, CrazyKinux himself, who asks the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves "What Now?" What will I attempt next? What haven't I done so far in EVE? Was it out fear, funds, or knowledge? Have I always wanted to start my own corporation, but have never dared doing so? Is there a fledging mercenary waiting to come out of its shell? Or maybe an Industrialist? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

* * * * *

I'm faced with a horrible year for Eve. With member #3 on the way for the Carebear Brigade I will be assigned to Twin Escort Duty almost constantly. Keeping up my scant playtime I have now will be impossible; logging in to change skills will be the best I will be able to do for many weeks. Perhaps in the fall some semblance of normality will return and I will log in regularly again, but only time will tell.

As such, my goals for this year are modest. Kirith is going to cross train into more Tech II Gallente ships with the possibility of going for a Proteus Strategic Cruiser late in the year on the table. Derranna will continue her combat training with a carrier being her ultimate goal after being able to field Tech II large projectiles in a Minmatar battleship.

I plan to continue to stay with M3 and live the good life PvPing when I can in Providence or wherever my corp takes me. I know its all very unexciting but when Real Life becomes very exciting and unsettled, my virtual life has to calm down.

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux's Musing - A beginning is a very delicate time...
2. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - Words, words, words…
3. My God It's Full of Stars - What Now?
4. The Elitist - Plans for 112yc
5. Into the unknown with gun and camera - Show me the money
6. Ecliptic Rift - Enabling the future
7. Inanity and Doom - New Year's Resolutions, New Eden Style
8. Break Vol - Blog Banter #14
9. Guns Ablaze - What Now?
10. Adventures in Mission Running - The Way Forward
11. Diary of a Pod Pilot - Things I want to do
12. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - The Year That Will Be
13. Roc's Ramblings - WordPress ate my blog
14. Vive Virtual - Frontier Living
15. A Mule in EVE - Next on the chopping block
16. Prano's Journey - I Peer Into My Crystal Pod...
17. Life in Low Sec - Expanding the Franchise
18. The Light of Stars - Testing the claims of CCP
19. A Memoir From Space - A New Direction
20. The Chronofile - Blog Banter 2010
21. FlashFresh - What now for Flash?
22. EVE Opportunist - Fyreite in 112
23. Mike Azariah - George
24. More to come...

Eve Game of the Year: 2009

Via Warp Drive Active we hear that Eve Online has been chosen as 2009's Game of the Year over at MMORPG.com

Every year, one game stands out among the rest, and while it would be easy to crown a winner based on subscriber numbers alone, we all know that a high subscriber count does not necessarily the best game make.
So instead, we decided to open the category up and instead look at multiple factors: design quality, fun, popularity, continued progress and more.
One game, however, stood out among the rest as the 2009 Game of the Year. The nominees were:

• Aion
• EVE Online
• Lord of the Rings Online
• World of Warcraft
• Wizard 101

The Winner: EVE Online

Coming up with a Game of the Year winner this time around was a difficult task. In the end, it came down to factors like: game growth, originality, overall contributions to the industry, fun factor, population and technological advancement and more. After much deliberation, the editorial staff at MMORPG.com has decided to hand this honor to veteran Sci-Fi MMORPG, EVE Online.

Read the whole thing. Go Eve!

Provi-Catch Heats Up

From the Scrapheap Challenge War and Politics forum:

Few words about battle aginst LFA, CVA & co. from C0ven point of view. I wasn't present during this action, so this is a copy paste from an alliance mate who is still waiting for posting rights in this forum.

We were gathered at 20 ET for another op when AAA called for support as they were outnumbered in F9E 200 to 600. We went back to FAT asap and reshiped to support (hacs lr, logistics, tacklers, cloakers) while Legiunea ROmana, that were part of our fleet, took LR BS. We were 150 man strong and ready to enter fight. Unfortunately jump planner was wrong and we wasnt able to jump through titan to system we wished to. Moreover few JBs were out of fuel and that cost us about 15 minutes delay. When we fnally jumped in to SV5 we saw "gf"s and "amarr victor"s on local - AAA was already leaving F9E gate being heavely outnumbered and outgunned. We loaded grid quite fast (less than 5 minutes), but once again bad luck - pos AAA told us to warp from the gate decided to shoot to us... We managed to load grid, regroup at ss and get ready to for engagement in few minutes nevertheless.
Our cloakers reported that enemy fleet is out of order and looting the field but, being afraid of grid loading, we decided to warp on a top of iHub. We went for our optimals while AAA regrouped (and reshiped i guess) and joined us there ins BSs with significant number of dictors. For few minutes there were single provi pilots jumping at iHub one by one (about 15, even one guardian), then squad of bombers tried to annihilate AAA BSs but failed and mostly killed by our HACs.
I meantime we heared about similar (about 150 man) fleet of our beloved sys-k who gathered in FAT and on their way to join us.
Few minutes after that bomb run whole BS fleet followed by tremendous number of support ships warped on 0 on iHub (very poor chice - this way they were at optimal from both our and AAA fleet standing on the both sides of the iHub. Shooting began. Lag was bad but not terrible, guns were cycling nicely, but there were loads of ghost ships and locking issues (we had like 5 people cycling at calling primaries when one or another wasnt able to refresh overview or lock single ship) but bubbled provi fleet took heavy losses in that first 10 minutes of a fight (we lost about 5 ships or so).
After that 15 minutes sys-k fleet reached SV5 and made lag almost unbearable. ghost ships, overview and locking issues become multipled, guns stoped to shoot etc. Provi fleet was still losing ships but much slower (due to lag caused problems and lack of bubbles on them). After another 30 minutes of that fight they decided to rewarp and lost few dozens of ships that got tackled or didnt load grid fast enough when they come back (i have no idea why they warped back to the same terrible location in a middle of already 3 fleets sniping them instead of jumping behind one of them forcing others to rewarp). After another 10-20 minutes of dying they finally withdrew leaving 2 tackled carrier that died shortly after.

At the end we reinforced that iHub and helped AAA to do the same with WD- one.

Go to the thread for more details and screenshots.Sadly I did not participate except for some POS repping afterwards.

Here's some info from DOTLan maps website on SV5-8N where the fighting was heaviest:

Single Server Blues

Over at Stabbed Up blog  the author, Stabs , has speculated that Eve's recent lag issues afflicting large null sec fleet fights is a symptom of a growing population base and he feels the only answer is to create more servers.

Now bugs can be fixed of course and more computing capacity can be purchased. But there's a
limit to how far and how fast Eve can grow. They already run the game on one of the most sophisticated supercomputers in the world.
[...]
So if Eve will keep growing both in player numbers and in graphical complexity then a second server becomes inevitable. And it's not like there isn't some precedent: the Chinese play Eve on a separate server and there is also a separate Test server.

Hogwash.

After almost every major Eve expansion (about two a year) there is unintended consequences due to the code changes. Sometimes the new bugs are minor or very hard to track down like the desync issues of early last year, or major issues like the gate jumping CTD bug of late last year. I know in a perfect world that Quality Assurance teams would catch these bugs but in a code base as big and complex as Eve, every change can potentially spawn many other unintended issues, and if QA catches and helps kill 99 out of 100 of them its the last one we see and grumble about.

So bugs happen. In Eve they usually manifest as large groups of players congregate, one of the use cases that is hard to reproduce in a lab. Thus fleet fights, where a lot of people are doing lots of things, tend to be the place that players notice the bugs the most and feel the effects the worst when they are on the losing side of a black loading screen.

So is another server to reduce population density the answer to these lag issues? I don't think so.

First off, the Eve server is actually a massive cluster of servers that allow player movement between them. Every one of Eve's 7500+ solar systems is called a Node and each server can support 1 to X nodes depending on how populated that node is or is expected to be. This means that while a second Eve server cluster would reduce overall player density, it would not prevent local node density from climbing since players can freely move from node to node. A lower population density might reduce the number of occurrences of large player congregations for the purposes of fleet fights or trade, but they would still happen and would still suck.

EDIT: As several people have pointed out, I got my terminology all mixed up. See James Harrison's excellent post here to get it right. However, the concept is correct: a system cannot be broken up across nodes and thus limits the workload sharing.

Secondly, the downsides of splitting the Eve community would be severe.

- The new server would be starting from scratch with no established economy and no working supply chains to provide the equipment for players. It would be like living in a third world country compared to the rich economy of the current Eve server (Tranquility) and it would take months of skill training and player base growth before the basic supply chains would exist, and it runs the possibility of never matching the rich and deep economy of the original anyways.

- The Chinese server, Serenity, averages around 4100 players at peak times which is less than 10% of Tranquility's peak players. The systems of Serenity are barren, the economy is weak and bare bones in the trade hubs, and the combat for the most part small skirmishes compared to Tranquility's fleet fights. If the effort is made to create a second Eve cluster it runs the risk of never reaching the critical mass to foster sustained growth, especially when in direct competition with Tranquility.*

- The splintering of the player base should the second server succeed against all odds would create some of the issues many other MMOs face such as lack of easy grouping of friends across servers, less importance of in game happenings ("that fight didn't occur on my server so I don't care"), less importance of player identities, forcing corporations that provide goods or services to either expand on the second server or ignore a potential customer base.

Those are just the downsides that I thought of. I'm sure there are many more.

In the end I believe that the current fleet battle lag issues will be resolved by CCP like they have done for previous issues, and in the meantime the player base will adjust and adapt their tactics to the new reality.

Does Eve's "server" have an upper limit? Perhaps but I would rather add more systems to the current cluster in the form of more null sec space, or more resources in wormhole space and allow outposts to be built there to allow players to live there truly, before creating a copy of the current cluster.

Time will tell.


* -I don't consider the Chinese server Serenity a true second server because the rest of the world doesn't get a choice to use it and Chinese citizens don't have a choice to choose Tranquility over it (in theory). Its a unique situation imposed by Chinese government restrictions and serves best as an example of how a new Eve cluster might develop.

Fiction Friday: Chapter 10

Previously:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

* * * * *

I left Inspector Sintol's apartment with him tied up securely to a chair and pulled out my comm as I approached the elevators. My brother's anxious voice answered on the second beep, "Hello?"

"Got anything?"

"No," he answered dejectedly. "I've gone over all the paperwork but there is no number except the one we already have for Rusack."

"OK, I might have a lead. Meet me at the main hab lifts."

"A lead? How?"

"Just meet me."

I took the elevator lift down to the main level and waited impatiently outside them for what felt like forever while my brother made his way up from the depths of the station. Finally he walked into view and I shepherded him into a lift with other members of the station public making their way home, silencing his questions with a stern look and an elbow to the ribs.

It took a few minutes to make several stops at lower floors before the lift was empty except for us around level 60. I hit the button for level 81 and finally filled my brother in on the happenings since I left him.

"You weren't really going to hurt him," Korannon stated as if he was trying to convince me and himself.

"I don't know, Kor. I'm not sure what I wouldn't do right now. I'm so fucking pissed." I rubbed my head. "We gotta get that money."

"At least get our money back."

"NO!" I said. "We're getting what we deserve."

My brother was taken aback by my anger and I was surprised as well. The stress and lack of sleep of the past few days was catching up to me and I took some breaths to try and calm down. The elevator stopped with the indicator on 81 and feeling a bit calmer, I slapped my brother on the shoulder as the doors opened and we exited.

"We'll get what we deserve."

AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Last night I decided that I would play Batman: Arkham Asylum as I still want to progress in that game in balance with my Eve game time. Because I love being Batman. Booya.

Last night I got to the Killer Kroc "level". And I have not been so frantic in a game since my days of playing Doom II and getting down in health and ammo and freeing an ambush in the dark room ahead.

I don't want to spoil it for anyone but let's just say that the flight-fight response of adrenaline was pumping through my body and in the game flight was impossible. I was well and truly freaked out by the suspense and I died four times before completing the level (twice when trying to run). I couldn't believe the panic that flowed through me when I knew Kroc was coming but didn't know from where. Intense.

Once I was finally done I had a huge sigh of relief and quit the game for less stressful Wii Super Mario with the wife.

EveMON, You Complete Me

The latest update for EveMON came out and its new features include the Skill Queue! Finally!

As you can see by my alt on the left, the queue shows what is in it and when it all finishes. Plus it notifies when the queue has free space on it with a prominent text banner.

This is especially handy for when you are doing a bunch of short skills and you forget if there is one more after the currently queued up skill or not. Which unfortunately happens all too often to me.

Also included in this update is the ability to view your active market orders if you enter the full API key.

All in all, nice new features to the already indispensable tool.
* * * * *

Speaking of skills (see what I did there?), I'm almost finished the leadership skills. Yeah, I know I'm supposed to be done already but I felt bad about not completing Information Warfare V and getting a few levels of Information Warfare Specialist to complete the set. OCD and all that, ya know?

Then I've decided to complete my Tengu skills, then Interdictors, then Gallente Cruiser V. So I'm busy for the rest of the winter.

Derranna is done Medium Tech II Projectiles and is working diligently on the support skills for Tech II Large projectiles. Still a long slog ahead of her but she should be rocking in a pimped out Minmatar Maelstrom by the summer.

Revisiting The Tengu

Way back in August I thought about going the uncommon path for Tengu strategic cruisers and building a blaster Tengu. However it was roundly panned for good reason and I ended up building my Covert Ops / Probing / Interdictor Bubble Nullifying Tengu which served me well for getting into deep Wicked Creek (and out again) during our short stay with Tactical Narcotics Team alliance. But in Providence I find I have little need for such a ship when so many other ships do the same things more easily and cheaply. In other words, the jack of all trades is master of none; especially after I saw how easily an enemy Tengu in the same design philosphy was quickly dispatched.

So I took my Tengu back to empire and it sat in my hanger while I mulled over ideas. The super tanking missile boat was tempting but do I really need another Nighthawk for PvE? No, I want a PvP ship.

Then I was inspired. There are certain fleets in Providence that are centered around Pulse Zealots with awesome locking time and high damage. Eagles are not as ideal for this type of role as their rails are not damaging enough and blasters are too short ranged (beyond the shield tank versus armour tank issues that is). But I decided to see how well a sniper Tengu compared to an Eagle.





As you can see, the Tengu has better align time, speed, range, DPS, effective hitpoints, and capacitor than the Eagle. When we reconfigure for short range, the Tengu looks like this:



Still decent range and the DPS is not too shabby, estimated over 73 DPS more than the Eagle at short range ammo.

While I'm sure someone will come along and tell me why the Proteus is better for this role I'm already ignoring them as I don't want to train up two sets of Strategic Cruiser skills. The Tengu is my ship and rails are my weapon of choice.

Unexpected Action

Last night I logged in with intentions of just working on my new Tengu setup (more on that later) as I didn't have a lot of time. Just as I logged in however, intel reported a hostile pilot travelling alone nearby. As the ship type was reported, you could feel a charge of electricity flash through the corp. "He's in a 'cane."

Don't get me wrong, Hurricanes are nice battlecruisers but they are a lot easier to tackle compared to an interceptor or cloaking ship, so the PvP instincts kicked into overdrive and a hastily built gang converged on his anticipated travel path. He jumped into a waiting Onyx heavy interdictor and Apocalypse battleship and the rest of us rushed to their position. I got there in time in my Taranis interceptor to activate my weapons and see the explosion.

The hostiles were coming out of the woodwork tonight and we chased around some pilots that appeared to be working together, but we gave up once we realized they were all in cloaking ships and not interested in a tussle. Our blood up, the gang went north towards some other intel reports of bad guys floating about and I acted as scout.

I jumped into a system with a red in local chat and surveyed the situation. On gate with me was a neutral Myrmidon battlecruiser and I moseyed back to the gate to see what he would do. Then, a hostile Ishtar heavy assault cruiser warped in and I tackled him in an effort to get him to engage or to jump through to my waiting mates. He locked me up and threw on some nasty energy neutralizers that emptied my cap. With no warp scram or speed module active I was less than useless and I opted after a few seconds to warp off to avoid death hoping I bought my gangmates enough time to catch him.

As I warped back I was pleased to see the Ishtar still there before it exploded.

But then reports came over voice comms that the neutral Myrmidon pilot had engaged one of our ships. We turned on him with frenzy in our blood and tore him apart. Rumour has it his CEO contacted us about shooting on friendlies but we gave him the diplomat's contact info and let the logs sort it out. If it was indeed an error on our part we will gladly reimburse the pilot his loss as we don't shoot neutrals that don't shoot us first.

With those three ship kills (and two pods) I was out of time and I logged, a supposedly quiet night turning into an unexpected brawl. I love living in Providence.

Christmas In Review

Ah, the sweet quiet of the office. No wild kids running around, no sore pregnant wife, no extended family chattering in the background. Of course, the office will get busy soon enough but for right now, I have peace.

Yes, Christmas was busy. Busy prior to the actual day with shopping and cleaning and wrapping, and busy after with cleaning and sorting and packing. Heck, even the day itself was packed full of activity like visiting and preparing dinner. It wasn't until later in the week after Christmas when I had time to actually think about relaxing.

I shouldn't complain though, I made out like a bandit. My wonderful wife got me the wireless gaming headset I asked for; I hate the wired version as the cord keeps getting tangled up and even when its untangled it gets in my way. The Wireless works very nice with better fit, sound quality, and NO WIRES!

My best friend Andrew purchased me Batman: Arkham Asylum which is just phenomenal even though my computer's CPU and RAM is not up to minimum specs. I've been playing on lowest graphic detail and so far, barring a couple instances, its been playable albeit not beautiful. I don't mind though, Batman is my favourite comic book superhero and this game captures the essence of the character very nicely. I'm going to start saving up for a new PC though.

Speaking of Andrew, I did find one day to slip away and partake in some board game goodness. We played some of his new game Pandemic which you can read about on his blog, and then four rounds of Memoir '44 in which we took turns playing each side in two scenarios. In the first scenario, Americans attacking Germans, the large numbers of allied tanks were not enough to overcome the German defensive line in both tries. In the second scenario the Germans attacked the Russians but once again the defenders, bolstered by two artillery positions, resisted the attack. Attacking is hard in that game without significant numerical superiority; the main problem is that the game mechanic makes it difficult to concentrate your attack on a narrow spot in a quick enough timeframe. The defender on the other hand, simply sits back in cover and counter-attacks anything that advances too close. Its more complicated than that of course but in our four rounds the defender won every time.

My time in Eve was nonexistent as I was busy and any free time I had I dedicated to Batman. Once the New Year passed I logged in and got back up to speed, culminating in a attempt last night at PvP that ended without me getting any action. No worries, lots of time left in the month to get my ten minimum kills. I had 23 last month and that was with the last week and a half being a wash.

Happy New Year!