If these guys were in charge of the big corporations in the gaming industry the games we get would be soooo much better. The industry as a whole would be so much better.
Seriously ignore the silly voice gimmick the guy uses and check out ALL of their videos. I cannot endorse this anymore then I can.
Channel and website http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Some of my favorite games/interests
Was talking to alot of friends on X-box live recently about various games including EVE, StarCraft 2, Homeworld, World of WarCraft , Halo Reach, Mass Effect 2 ETC.
And wanted to share with them and any who reads this blog -__- some cool trailers to EVE , Other awesome games I play and some cool video submitters you need to subscribe to on youtube and why.
EVE ONLINE TRAILERS
This one is the first EVE online trailer I ever saw, It gives you a basic idea of how the game environment is. Its called "The Butterfly Effect"
This next one is from the Dominion Expansion It depicts a ficitious battle (loosely based on a real one) between a invading fleet vs a defending one. Its more space battle drama instead of representation of a actual fleet battle. But it is a inspiring and entertaining nonetheless
Next up is EVE trailer for Causality, similar to the butterfly effect trailer depicts a factious event based on actual events that took place in EVE online.
Oh and this guy deserves his own blog page from me but sadly I'm too tired.
Hes a amazing bassist you should listen to him and subscribe to his youtube channel.
Enjoy
See you next time
And wanted to share with them and any who reads this blog -__- some cool trailers to EVE , Other awesome games I play and some cool video submitters you need to subscribe to on youtube and why.
EVE ONLINE TRAILERS
This one is the first EVE online trailer I ever saw, It gives you a basic idea of how the game environment is. Its called "The Butterfly Effect"
This next one is from the Dominion Expansion It depicts a ficitious battle (loosely based on a real one) between a invading fleet vs a defending one. Its more space battle drama instead of representation of a actual fleet battle. But it is a inspiring and entertaining nonetheless
Next up is EVE trailer for Causality, similar to the butterfly effect trailer depicts a factious event based on actual events that took place in EVE online.
Mass Effect 2
"Best Xbox 360 game" 2010 VGA
My personal vote for Game of the Year 2010. Quite the epic game, if you have not played it go buy Mass Effect 1 and 2 and play them both.
"Best Xbox 360 game" 2010 VGA
My personal vote for Game of the Year 2010. Quite the epic game, if you have not played it go buy Mass Effect 1 and 2 and play them both.
This guy reviews Technology from the Xbox 360 to the PS3 to cell phones and games. He's very comprehensive un-biased and very insightful. His review of the HTC Aria helped me make my final decision on purchasing it.
The very eccentric very hyperactive caster of StarCraft 2 fame. His channel views, like, subscription count speak for itself. You know what those guys in the speakerbox at baseball games do? Husky does that for StarCraft 2 games (generally played in the pro leagues). He's also been invited to host/cast/commentate at MLG and Blizzard Tournaments. A avid and (somewhat pro) player himself his insight to the game and entertaining antics make a must watch for any StarCraft 2 fan who loves its competitive multiplayer.
Heres a example of a SC2 game casted by Husky
The very eccentric very hyperactive caster of StarCraft 2 fame. His channel views, like, subscription count speak for itself. You know what those guys in the speakerbox at baseball games do? Husky does that for StarCraft 2 games (generally played in the pro leagues). He's also been invited to host/cast/commentate at MLG and Blizzard Tournaments. A avid and (somewhat pro) player himself his insight to the game and entertaining antics make a must watch for any StarCraft 2 fan who loves its competitive multiplayer.
Heres a example of a SC2 game casted by Husky
Oh and this guy deserves his own blog page from me but sadly I'm too tired.
Hes a amazing bassist you should listen to him and subscribe to his youtube channel.
Enjoy
See you next time
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
In Soviet Tyrannis
Wish I had more to update but I've been playing my hand in too many games and not enough of any one in particular to note great things to blog about.
Not that any of my blogs talk about great things =x
Mainly Its lazyness. The only times I'm inspired to write (or type as it were) is at work. Where I dont have access to a computer and I am NOT going to use the wretched keyboard on my smartphone.
Lets start with EVE
EVE
Was able to purchase me a new ride in real life which drained my wallet to where My main account expired and my 2 alt accounts were in danger of running out of time. I spent the next 4 days mining in our corp system in Vale to get up enough money to plex my accounts.
(PLEX refers to a in game time card purchased with in game money adding a month of game time to the account)
Lets see after I reactivated my Apackof12ninjas account I see that our resident pesky roamer "Vlad" was in system again looking to get a easy kill. He apparently flys around vale alot lookin for industrial s to kill in his solo purifier (stealth bomber) I just so happend to have my double bubble cloaky sabre ( a light interdictor with 2 bubble launchers and a cloaking device)
I had just wrapped up mining for the day and was fixing to haul in my 5 cans of bistot ore on Apackof12miners. Vlad starts a little chitchat in local and is spotted leaving the system. I and a few others follow and he leads us in a circle which eventually comes back to our system again. By this time I decide to set a trap for dear Vlad by warping in my orca to the belt to pick up the cans and hopefully get scanned down by Vlad. I planned to spring it by uncloaking my Sabre nearby bubbling the Purifier and popping him with my T2 Autocannons.
Sadly he had already discovered my miners hidden belt and bookmarked it. He was there to see me warp my sabre there , cloak it and commented in local. Said he was tempted and left system.
We chased after him system to system hoping to get lucky. Came close once but he got away. Decided to camp the choke point at the constellation exit, setting another trap while we had a 3 man gang chase him around the systems till he decided to leave.
Finally spotted him on my cloaky alt and when he hit the gate we sprung the trap. But he got away again. Stealth bombers are hard enough to catch but this guy was good. Hopefully will catch him next time.
Not many fleets formed since the NC's Morsis Mihi and Razor pulled out of the Drone Offensive due to Pandemic legion harassment. Rage and Majesta remained committed to the defense of Geminate and the surrounding regions we captured. But the outlook isnt looking to be in our favor.
PL's attacks are ever ruthless and the pristine NC FC"s seem to be all but retired. Even so the NC has survived worse. We will prevail we will survive.
Ah serious business aside had a interesting situation today. Last night I finished Anchor V which allows for the skill "Starbase defense management"
This skill alows one to take over a POS gun or more depending on skills. As with any new skill I like to test out how it works. So I warp Apack to the nearest POS in our system man one of the medium guns put my Alt Miner in a Apocolypse. After learning the mechanics of controlling the gun I fired a few shots and warped my miner to the station to dock up to recharge its shields. Wanted to test fire the big gun to see how much damage it did.
Now before I did anything with the POS guns I convo'ed a director about how if I did such a experiment would the entire stations guns would not all bear down on me. I was told they would not.
Sad to say this was incorrect or at least a new glitch simliar to when Tyrannis expansion first came out.
When I had warped back to the POS in horror I watched as my screen began to be filled with yellow box's which turned red which started shooting at me. Though only the small lasers were hitting me the warp scramblers and the lack of self rep was enough to eventually take me out. A corp buddy had come to help out was a few seconds too late from turning off the warp scramblers.
Be it glitch or game design lesson learned. I'm not too sad or angry over the loss. Fair amount of the expensive parts were dropped and recovered by me. I ejected the cargo before the ship blew up and the insurance covered the loss of the trimarks (armor enhancement rigs).
More to come later.
(PLEX refers to a in game time card purchased with in game money adding a month of game time to the account)
Lets see after I reactivated my Apackof12ninjas account I see that our resident pesky roamer "Vlad" was in system again looking to get a easy kill. He apparently flys around vale alot lookin for industrial s to kill in his solo purifier (stealth bomber) I just so happend to have my double bubble cloaky sabre ( a light interdictor with 2 bubble launchers and a cloaking device)
I had just wrapped up mining for the day and was fixing to haul in my 5 cans of bistot ore on Apackof12miners. Vlad starts a little chitchat in local and is spotted leaving the system. I and a few others follow and he leads us in a circle which eventually comes back to our system again. By this time I decide to set a trap for dear Vlad by warping in my orca to the belt to pick up the cans and hopefully get scanned down by Vlad. I planned to spring it by uncloaking my Sabre nearby bubbling the Purifier and popping him with my T2 Autocannons.
Sadly he had already discovered my miners hidden belt and bookmarked it. He was there to see me warp my sabre there , cloak it and commented in local. Said he was tempted and left system.
We chased after him system to system hoping to get lucky. Came close once but he got away. Decided to camp the choke point at the constellation exit, setting another trap while we had a 3 man gang chase him around the systems till he decided to leave.
Finally spotted him on my cloaky alt and when he hit the gate we sprung the trap. But he got away again. Stealth bombers are hard enough to catch but this guy was good. Hopefully will catch him next time.
Not many fleets formed since the NC's Morsis Mihi and Razor pulled out of the Drone Offensive due to Pandemic legion harassment. Rage and Majesta remained committed to the defense of Geminate and the surrounding regions we captured. But the outlook isnt looking to be in our favor.
PL's attacks are ever ruthless and the pristine NC FC"s seem to be all but retired. Even so the NC has survived worse. We will prevail we will survive.
Ah serious business aside had a interesting situation today. Last night I finished Anchor V which allows for the skill "Starbase defense management"
This skill alows one to take over a POS gun or more depending on skills. As with any new skill I like to test out how it works. So I warp Apack to the nearest POS in our system man one of the medium guns put my Alt Miner in a Apocolypse. After learning the mechanics of controlling the gun I fired a few shots and warped my miner to the station to dock up to recharge its shields. Wanted to test fire the big gun to see how much damage it did.
Now before I did anything with the POS guns I convo'ed a director about how if I did such a experiment would the entire stations guns would not all bear down on me. I was told they would not.
Sad to say this was incorrect or at least a new glitch simliar to when Tyrannis expansion first came out.
When I had warped back to the POS in horror I watched as my screen began to be filled with yellow box's which turned red which started shooting at me. Though only the small lasers were hitting me the warp scramblers and the lack of self rep was enough to eventually take me out. A corp buddy had come to help out was a few seconds too late from turning off the warp scramblers.
Be it glitch or game design lesson learned. I'm not too sad or angry over the loss. Fair amount of the expensive parts were dropped and recovered by me. I ejected the cargo before the ship blew up and the insurance covered the loss of the trimarks (armor enhancement rigs).
More to come later.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Screenshot Saturday
Not gonna lie was inspired by a NC's brosefs blog on this one but I got a screen-shot from a fleet
We reffed the Station in said system setup for a big big fight come Tuesday
Friday, November 5, 2010
IMA FIRIN MAH LAZOR
EVE Online
Yes my miner is now a combat pilot. Specifically flying a Amarr Battleship the Apocalypse
Its been my plan for awhile now to transition my miner who can now fly (and has) a Rorqual to a Full combat pilot. Well sort of full. I still plan to mine and haul with him when the need arise but for most fleets Apackof12miners is going to fly escort with me in his Apoc =D
Eventually I plan to get him into a Amarr Dreadnaught The Revelation.
Since Apackof12Ninjas is heading down the Carrier/Super Carrier path this added to the fact that Apackof12miners has Captial ships skills being able to fly a Rorq this just makes sense.
Gotta say, I love flying Amarr ships, Kinda wish I had trained them from the get go on Apackof12ninjas. But oh well. Too much cross training on that front already.
As for how the NC campaign against the russians well everything has been going well. We continue to push into Russian space. Been in several fleets heres some screen-shots
Oh and speaking of getting my Miner to combat I actually 2 boxed in a short fleet to see if i could and it was funnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
Thats it for EVE
Halo Reach
While playing Halo Reach tonight I had a interesting discussion with some of my friends whilest playing.For some reason or another I was asked why I hated MLG. To be fair I had to double back and correct myself.
I do not hate Major League Gaming, What I do hate is what MLG is to Halo. A set of "rules" and gametypes that literally strip Halo of 2/3 of its gameplay and labels itself "Pro"
I also hate the condecending attitude of most "Halo MLG" players. I'm sorry but to take out 2/3s of the gameplay and change the rules of the game to me is anything but Halo, So I do not consider "Halo MLG" pro or skillful.
I like most MLG gaming because they take the game for what it is in its competitive multiplayer. With 100% of its gameplay intact.
Take StarCraft 2 for example. Whats the difference between a MLG SC2 game or Tourny game hosted by Blizzard? Nothing. Whats the difference between both of those and a standard Battlenet multiplayer game? Nothing.
MLG Halo conversely starts you off with a ranged precession weapon (which you normally would have to scout and precure on the map) on small maps with no vehicles or most power weapons. Your pretty much playing Counter Strike at that point. Theres little strategy, just point and shoot.
Actualy Halo Multiplayer is more then that. Sometimes theres vehicles sometimes there isn't power weapons and you dont start out with one of the most powerful mid range weapons in the game. You actually have to go out and get somethin better then the default. But to each his own I guess.
StarCraft 2
Banshee Rush still remains my strongest build order but most of the time I just spawn 2-4 banshees and do some heavy harassing, and expand. If the banshees are doing enuogh damage I keep pushing till I see the GG.
If they dont I should have a strong enough economy to push out some siege tanks and Thors mixed with marine maruder (from 1 rax) and some medivacs. So Banshees soften em up and The army that comes after seals the deal.
I'm practicing to get better at all the basics but I cant seem to get any higher then 21 rank in my Silver league division. At least most people I face post "Good luck have fun" *aka GL HF*
I plan on uploading some short games of win and fail soon.
Thats all for now.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Back from RL No longer just a EVE blog
Wow I don't remember how long its been since Ive last blogged, 2 weeks without power due to a issue with my roommate is one cause. 3 weeks without internet after because our neighbors below us in our apartment complex decided to cut the wire shortly before being evicted and BrightHouse incompetence in getting out to fix the problem didn't help either.
Been a long time and I got alot to talk about.
First off I am actually aiming to increase my EVE time greatly. Sadly I am down to 2 accounts as my 3rd account that my friend used to play on and I used to do some extra mining on is no longer functioning. Meaning Its going to be alot harder to plex my 2 accounts.
Thankfully my superiors in Reliable Inc. have decided to keep me around even with my absence. Through a friend that still plays EVE from time I've been able to keep my skill training going whilest I was offline for about a month. Plus I would visit my parents once a week for some internet mooching =x.
HAC training is complete and due to my cross training with Caldari I can now fly the Cerebus and Ishtar. Which I plan to on smaller gang runs. I can also fly the Onyx which I have in a few fleets. Got maybe 1-2 kills on it but Ive had more fun flying HICs and DICtors then I hvae flying anything else so far. Logi love is fun but its nice to have a break and fly something you can get alot of action.
After some poking by some corp-mates they've talked me into cross training into a Sabre instead of using the almost useless Eris for interdictors. Which is complete now I'm spending a additional 4 days to train for the T2 small autocannons to complement the Sabre. After which I plan to train for T2 Rails for HAC's and BattleCruisers then onto Large T2 for Megathrons. Then Battleship V' Logistics V and other skills before I begin the long road to carriers.
My miner has actually gotten as far as I want him to get as far as Industry is concerned. He can fly A Rorqual the only capital Industrial ship in the game. (took me a month to save up for cost me a little over 1.5 billion isk) With it I can make my own High sec runs and help the corp out with logistical moving operations as well as mining ops. As a captial ship it cannot use stargates but instead must use its own jump drive from one system to another. While this sounds like a handicap its not. Capital ships jump drives can bypass 1 or several systems depending on their distance from one to another. I can actually jump from our home system in my Rorq to a low security system in 1 jump to make runs into the neighboring high security system.
Since my miners mining part for the most part is over, Ive decided to get him into a dreadnought
Specifically the Amarr Revelation. This is going to be a long road to travel but it will allow me to do two things I would not be able to (or willing to do) on my main account. Fly ships that fire lasers and fly dreadnoughts) Ive always wanted to fly Amarr but cross training again would've taken far more time then I would have wanted to spend. Instead I opted to fly more ships I wanted between Caldari, Galante and spend my unused skill training on my miner to train up some "useful guilty pleasures".
Thats all I think for EVE.
And This blog first started out as a EVE blog of sorts but now with Halo Reach and StarCraft 2 being out I've decided to change this to more of a Gaming Blog then simply a EVE blog. I typically record my SC2 games with FRAPs and post them on youtube, all of which I will soon post here with some commentary.
SC2 is a fun fun game especially comeptiviely. I am currently in the silver league 27th in my current division. In 2v2 I am in the gold league with my friend Blindminus. Last of the 4 placement games we played was pretty epic. I started MMM (Marines Medics and Marauders)
which did ok for awhile but the middle of the map the lines were drawn and the battle raged on. I mainly macro'ed and produced units and let Blind control them. We were going nowhere but holding the line until we switched to Mass Thros siege tanks and Hellions. Which hard countered their Mutas, banglings and Ultralisks. We ended the game with 27 Thors and I dont know how many hellions. Was a sweet game.
Just to clarify in starcraft 2 there is the
That said I havent played much SC2 since I got back. SC2's community is full of people that have been playing the game since the first StarCraft and I think more then 75% of the people playing SC2 probably have played the beta of Sc2 or just have alot more experiance then me. I played SC when it first came out it was the first computer game I ever played (on my own PC that is) I just for some reason feel a great ammount of intimidation whenever I think about playing SC2 competitively.
I watch alot of SC2 replays with commentary by "pro" players known to the SC2 community as "SC2 Casts". I mainly watch "casts" by HuskyStarcraft and HDStarcraft, some of the most knowledgeable (and entertaining) player commentators who have been allowed to host and comment on some very high level SC and SC2 tournaments. Needless to say the games they cast and their commentary can help low level players like myself. So I watch alot.
One of the main things I learned is to learn basic build orders like MMM, Siege Expand, Destiny cloud fist build aka the 1 starport 1 factory 1 barracks build.
Some things that I learned from the pros
Im currently working MMM Siege expand and Banshee Rush build orders.
Banshee rush being the most successful.
So far since Ive been writing down the build orders in a notebook and strictly following heres the games Ive won,
Banshee Rush 6
MMM 3
Siege Expand 1
Terran continues to be my favorite race despite the nerfs they've been getting lately.
Hope to get some more games in but i need some friends to practice with, Gamertag is a bit different from my norm since Blizzards Battlenet doesnt allow numbers in gamertags
Its "ApackofNinja" Friend code is 393
=)
Moving on to Halo Reach.
In many games I prefer PVP or competitive play. I know I wont be the best but still like to get as high ranked as possible
Before I lost power and internet I was in the Silver league of Team Arena.
Since the seasons are so short Ive been reduced to currently not being in any division
Reach's divisions are a bit different then SC2 in two main ways
First off is the names
In Reach its
In SC2 you keep your division and league until you win or lose enough games to rise or fall out of your current division/league.
About Reach....
I am very glad to see the BR gone with its accurate spam but somewhat annoyed how a DMR can be spammed and still get above average results. The addition of the loadouts have made competitive play very diverse and adds alot more fun to the games. Choosing the correct loadout and playing it well with your Team can mean victory or defeat in Reach.
One thing I am super happy about is how your rating is not determine merely by your simple Kill Death Ratio but by a complex system that determines how well you work with your team in addition to what you personally contribute to victory or defeat. Being counter productive by betraying even hitting your ally accidentally actually lowers your rating. And quitting earns you almost a negative rating but in repetitive cases can get you soft banned from Halo Reach matchmaking from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
All in all the Halo experience remains the same, Gameplay that rewards teamwork and allows the skilled marksmen or the cunning attacker a chance to win based on more then just simple aim and shoot skill.
Thats all for now. Hopefully I'll be alot more active in posting about these 3 games and more.
Stay tuned.
Been a long time and I got alot to talk about.
First off I am actually aiming to increase my EVE time greatly. Sadly I am down to 2 accounts as my 3rd account that my friend used to play on and I used to do some extra mining on is no longer functioning. Meaning Its going to be alot harder to plex my 2 accounts.
Thankfully my superiors in Reliable Inc. have decided to keep me around even with my absence. Through a friend that still plays EVE from time I've been able to keep my skill training going whilest I was offline for about a month. Plus I would visit my parents once a week for some internet mooching =x.
HAC training is complete and due to my cross training with Caldari I can now fly the Cerebus and Ishtar. Which I plan to on smaller gang runs. I can also fly the Onyx which I have in a few fleets. Got maybe 1-2 kills on it but Ive had more fun flying HICs and DICtors then I hvae flying anything else so far. Logi love is fun but its nice to have a break and fly something you can get alot of action.
After some poking by some corp-mates they've talked me into cross training into a Sabre instead of using the almost useless Eris for interdictors. Which is complete now I'm spending a additional 4 days to train for the T2 small autocannons to complement the Sabre. After which I plan to train for T2 Rails for HAC's and BattleCruisers then onto Large T2 for Megathrons. Then Battleship V' Logistics V and other skills before I begin the long road to carriers.
My miner has actually gotten as far as I want him to get as far as Industry is concerned. He can fly A Rorqual the only capital Industrial ship in the game. (took me a month to save up for cost me a little over 1.5 billion isk) With it I can make my own High sec runs and help the corp out with logistical moving operations as well as mining ops. As a captial ship it cannot use stargates but instead must use its own jump drive from one system to another. While this sounds like a handicap its not. Capital ships jump drives can bypass 1 or several systems depending on their distance from one to another. I can actually jump from our home system in my Rorq to a low security system in 1 jump to make runs into the neighboring high security system.
Since my miners mining part for the most part is over, Ive decided to get him into a dreadnought
Specifically the Amarr Revelation. This is going to be a long road to travel but it will allow me to do two things I would not be able to (or willing to do) on my main account. Fly ships that fire lasers and fly dreadnoughts) Ive always wanted to fly Amarr but cross training again would've taken far more time then I would have wanted to spend. Instead I opted to fly more ships I wanted between Caldari, Galante and spend my unused skill training on my miner to train up some "useful guilty pleasures".
Thats all I think for EVE.
And This blog first started out as a EVE blog of sorts but now with Halo Reach and StarCraft 2 being out I've decided to change this to more of a Gaming Blog then simply a EVE blog. I typically record my SC2 games with FRAPs and post them on youtube, all of which I will soon post here with some commentary.
SC2 is a fun fun game especially comeptiviely. I am currently in the silver league 27th in my current division. In 2v2 I am in the gold league with my friend Blindminus. Last of the 4 placement games we played was pretty epic. I started MMM (Marines Medics and Marauders)
which did ok for awhile but the middle of the map the lines were drawn and the battle raged on. I mainly macro'ed and produced units and let Blind control them. We were going nowhere but holding the line until we switched to Mass Thros siege tanks and Hellions. Which hard countered their Mutas, banglings and Ultralisks. We ended the game with 27 Thors and I dont know how many hellions. Was a sweet game.
Just to clarify in starcraft 2 there is the
- Diamond league
- Platinum league
- Gold league
- Silver league
- Bronze league
That said I havent played much SC2 since I got back. SC2's community is full of people that have been playing the game since the first StarCraft and I think more then 75% of the people playing SC2 probably have played the beta of Sc2 or just have alot more experiance then me. I played SC when it first came out it was the first computer game I ever played (on my own PC that is) I just for some reason feel a great ammount of intimidation whenever I think about playing SC2 competitively.
I watch alot of SC2 replays with commentary by "pro" players known to the SC2 community as "SC2 Casts". I mainly watch "casts" by HuskyStarcraft and HDStarcraft, some of the most knowledgeable (and entertaining) player commentators who have been allowed to host and comment on some very high level SC and SC2 tournaments. Needless to say the games they cast and their commentary can help low level players like myself. So I watch alot.
One of the main things I learned is to learn basic build orders like MMM, Siege Expand, Destiny cloud fist build aka the 1 starport 1 factory 1 barracks build.
Some things that I learned from the pros
- Keep your micro as strong as your macro
- Never sit on resources spend spend spend
- BE AGGRESSIVE
- SCOUT SCOUT SCOUT
- Stick to your best build orders
- Adapt to enemy counters
- Expand when you attack
- Keep that gas line up
- Harass whenever possible
Im currently working MMM Siege expand and Banshee Rush build orders.
Banshee rush being the most successful.
So far since Ive been writing down the build orders in a notebook and strictly following heres the games Ive won,
Banshee Rush 6
MMM 3
Siege Expand 1
Terran continues to be my favorite race despite the nerfs they've been getting lately.
Hope to get some more games in but i need some friends to practice with, Gamertag is a bit different from my norm since Blizzards Battlenet doesnt allow numbers in gamertags
Its "ApackofNinja" Friend code is 393
=)
Moving on to Halo Reach.
In many games I prefer PVP or competitive play. I know I wont be the best but still like to get as high ranked as possible
Before I lost power and internet I was in the Silver league of Team Arena.
Since the seasons are so short Ive been reduced to currently not being in any division
Reach's divisions are a bit different then SC2 in two main ways
First off is the names
In Reach its
- Onyx
- Diamond
- Gold
- Steel
- Bronze
In SC2 you keep your division and league until you win or lose enough games to rise or fall out of your current division/league.
About Reach....
I am very glad to see the BR gone with its accurate spam but somewhat annoyed how a DMR can be spammed and still get above average results. The addition of the loadouts have made competitive play very diverse and adds alot more fun to the games. Choosing the correct loadout and playing it well with your Team can mean victory or defeat in Reach.
One thing I am super happy about is how your rating is not determine merely by your simple Kill Death Ratio but by a complex system that determines how well you work with your team in addition to what you personally contribute to victory or defeat. Being counter productive by betraying even hitting your ally accidentally actually lowers your rating. And quitting earns you almost a negative rating but in repetitive cases can get you soft banned from Halo Reach matchmaking from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
All in all the Halo experience remains the same, Gameplay that rewards teamwork and allows the skilled marksmen or the cunning attacker a chance to win based on more then just simple aim and shoot skill.
Thats all for now. Hopefully I'll be alot more active in posting about these 3 games and more.
Stay tuned.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
6 weeks...Has it really been that long?
Wow alot has happened in the last month in my off line life (RL for you net-dwellers) and unfortunately my EVE time has dwindled.
Last 2 months saw the conclusion to Max 2 and with it the crazy everyday fights we so much enjoyed. The Russians have then been our primary focus as Majesta Empire and Rage border them. Ops in Geminate be a plenty.
But sadly every time I'm online with plenty of time available to play there be no fleets up. PB be fairly active with fresh roams but is really a pain to get to as it lies in the Northern territory of the NC. Leaving me with very little to talk about. I could continue reminiscing about my first days in the NC but 90% of that save the Titan kill was it. LOTS of stuff happened afterwords but by then I was broken in and I feel if I try to cover all of it Ill be writing past events while the present constantly being pushed back in wait.
So TLDR During the siege of H-W , well after it ended we managed to kill a Atlas Titan. woohoo \o/
http://www.reliables-inc.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=5189
Not too much to brag about but many have played the game for years or less and still have yet to get in on one. Moving along though.
To catch those who've been wondering where I've been offline.
On the 4th of July whilst playing with fireworks celebrating Americas biggest holiday to blow crap up, I mis-read a situation where I thought a mortar was inserted incorrectly into a tube after I lit it, I immediately didn't want to figure out whether i was right or wrong and chose to turn and run. I did hard and fast, but my foot didn't land quite the way I wanted. But while still being too close I continue to run on the injury making it worse. Despite my fears it exploded in the sky wonderfully proving my effort to escape vain.
Its been more then a month now and the swelling is still there but subsiding. Its been a long long month where I had to limp for more then half of it, wear a annoying brace and avoid strenuous activity's (which was almost impossible due to work). Also given that I couldnt get into fleets and Ratting/mining was burning me out, I've retreated to XBL. Been playing Halo 3 alot in anticipation of Halo Reach.
Plus Star Craft 2 coming out last week is'nt helping things. (<---Big SC fan) But I hav'nt been completely inactive, Ive made it to at least 3-4 fleets a week mostly as Logistical Cruiser support and I've nearly save up enough money via deals to buy me a Rorqual to aid in corp and personal logistics. Even gotten on a few KMs while flying logi. Interdictors is next up on the ship list before I buckle down for T2 rails for my battleships and start the long long road to carriers. Oh and flying fast tackle interceptors is as fun as flying logi. Expect to be left out on some KMs T_T
Fly safe Will hopefully have some more storys to talk about next time.
Last 2 months saw the conclusion to Max 2 and with it the crazy everyday fights we so much enjoyed. The Russians have then been our primary focus as Majesta Empire and Rage border them. Ops in Geminate be a plenty.
But sadly every time I'm online with plenty of time available to play there be no fleets up. PB be fairly active with fresh roams but is really a pain to get to as it lies in the Northern territory of the NC. Leaving me with very little to talk about. I could continue reminiscing about my first days in the NC but 90% of that save the Titan kill was it. LOTS of stuff happened afterwords but by then I was broken in and I feel if I try to cover all of it Ill be writing past events while the present constantly being pushed back in wait.
So TLDR During the siege of H-W , well after it ended we managed to kill a Atlas Titan. woohoo \o/
http://www.reliables-inc.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=5189
Not too much to brag about but many have played the game for years or less and still have yet to get in on one. Moving along though.
To catch those who've been wondering where I've been offline.
On the 4th of July whilst playing with fireworks celebrating Americas biggest holiday to blow crap up, I mis-read a situation where I thought a mortar was inserted incorrectly into a tube after I lit it, I immediately didn't want to figure out whether i was right or wrong and chose to turn and run. I did hard and fast, but my foot didn't land quite the way I wanted. But while still being too close I continue to run on the injury making it worse. Despite my fears it exploded in the sky wonderfully proving my effort to escape vain.
Its been more then a month now and the swelling is still there but subsiding. Its been a long long month where I had to limp for more then half of it, wear a annoying brace and avoid strenuous activity's (which was almost impossible due to work). Also given that I couldnt get into fleets and Ratting/mining was burning me out, I've retreated to XBL. Been playing Halo 3 alot in anticipation of Halo Reach.
Plus Star Craft 2 coming out last week is'nt helping things. (<---Big SC fan) But I hav'nt been completely inactive, Ive made it to at least 3-4 fleets a week mostly as Logistical Cruiser support and I've nearly save up enough money via deals to buy me a Rorqual to aid in corp and personal logistics. Even gotten on a few KMs while flying logi. Interdictors is next up on the ship list before I buckle down for T2 rails for my battleships and start the long long road to carriers. Oh and flying fast tackle interceptors is as fun as flying logi. Expect to be left out on some KMs T_T
Fly safe Will hopefully have some more storys to talk about next time.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Some EVE lingo
In no particular order
Cyno-Special field that creates a temporary bridge from one system to another and allows ships to travel from their Jump origin to the destination cyno field. When a Cyno field is lit everyone in the local solar system can see it on their overview (general information tab) and warp to it. Be it friendly or hostile. While a cyno module is activated the pilot cannot move their ship until it is deactivated. Typical Cyno fields stay active for 10 minutes.
Jump Bridge: aka JB: A space bridge that allows ships with or without a jump drive to jump from one system to another. JB's typically consume liquid oxygen as a cost for its use, Titans can act if fitted properly as a mobile jump bridge which allows Fleets to be "dropped" onto a unsuspecting enemy. Standard Jump Bridges are put on Player Owned Stations to connect one system to another and can only be used if both P.O.S.'s are online and if the pilot knows the POS password. Titan JBs can be used by anyone who is in the same fleet as the Titan but only if there is a destination cyno within range. Also note that a Titans JB is limited to around 30 seconds of usage before the Titan pilot must consume more fuel to maintain the Jump bridge connection.
So pilots must be paying attention for when the Titans JB is active so they can jump in and engage the enemy before its too late the portal closes.
**Jump bridges are typically used to bypass gate camps and systems altogether as counter intelligence measures.
Gate: A transwarp device that allows ships to "jump" from one system to another. Each gate can only connect to one nearby system. Gates, depending on their location may be natural choke points to certain systems are a sometimes camped which are referred to as "Gate camps" where players will sit within attack range of the gate in hopes of catching any pilots attempting to use it or coming through from the other side.
Tackle/Pointed: "I've been 'Tackled' at the G95 gate I need assistance!" Being tackled or "pointed" refers to having a enemy friendly or npc lock you and disrupt your warp drive or jump drive, preventing you from escaping by means of warp or jumping. If you are pointed or tackled you must either destroy the person or NPC tackling/pointing you or disrupt their lock through ECM.
**In my experience You say "tackled" when your warp drive has been disrupted and you say "pointed" when referring to a enemies warp drive being disrupted. Though it might just be a matter of preference.
***Warp disruption can be disabled through use of Warp core stabilizer low slot modules. But this is ill advised as such modules greatly inhibit your targeting range and have stiff penalties. Using them is only a desperation tactic to ensure your retreat. Not for fighting. 1 warp core stabilizer can counter 1 unit of disruption. 1 Warp disruptor uses 1 unit of disruption 1 Warp scrambler uses 2 unit of disruption but half the range of a Warp disruptor. So to block the effects of a warp scrambler you wuld need 2 Warp core stabilizers provided there is only 1 enemy tackler. **Interdiction ships cannot be countered by warp core stabs.
ECM: Electronic Counter Measure: There are 5 ECM types. Multi-spectral which effects all types and the racials that effect specfic race types of ships. ECM modules can disuprt a players target lock making them (if the ECM hit lands) lose their target and not target anything for upwards of 20 seconds or longer.
**This can be countered by ECCM modules (electronic counter counter modules)
Bubbles: Refers to Interdiction bubbles: "BUBBLE UP A THE GATE !" interdiction bubbles are fields ranging from 10 to 15 to 50 kilometer bubbles that surround either a launch able warp interdiction bubble or a heavy interdiction cruiser. Any ship caught inside these "bubbles" warp drives and jump drives will not function and cannot escape. "Bubbles up" means for designated interdiction pilots to launch or active their Interdiction units and "Bubbles down" means for said pilots to deactivate or destroy the interdiction units.
H-W: One of the staging system's for the Norther Coalition. Notable for being the target of the Southern Coalition during the Max 2 war.
Ratting: Refers to playing versus environment or non playable characters which are typically referred to as "rats" killing rats in most events results in bountys collected if those pirate NPCs are wanted criminals while other rewards may come from killing rare pilots or specific anti pirate missions.
SB: Stealth bomber, Small Frigates that can fit Torpedo launchers that can normally only be put on Battleship class vessels. Their main purpose however lies with their ability to equip Cover ops cloaking devices which allow vessels to warp while cloaked and use Bomb launchers. Bombs can only be launched from 30km away but yeild a explosive blast 15 kilometers in diameter. Bombs do very high damage but most battlecruiser class ships (or larger)have enough hitpoints in either their shields armor or structure to survive the blast of one. Their terrifying power comes from being launched in tandem with other stealth bombers. SB fleets have been known to take out several battleships and smaller vessels in one bomb run if the enemy fleet has been foolish enough to group their ships too close together. Aside from the bombs the torpedo bonus's that a SB can use should not be ignored. They pack enough DPS alone to rival most Battleships, however because of this overwhelming attack power SB defense are literally paper thin. One well place hit will kill most Stealth Bombers.
Ill be adding to this one over time, as theres more to be told.
Cyno-Special field that creates a temporary bridge from one system to another and allows ships to travel from their Jump origin to the destination cyno field. When a Cyno field is lit everyone in the local solar system can see it on their overview (general information tab) and warp to it. Be it friendly or hostile. While a cyno module is activated the pilot cannot move their ship until it is deactivated. Typical Cyno fields stay active for 10 minutes.
Jump Bridge: aka JB: A space bridge that allows ships with or without a jump drive to jump from one system to another. JB's typically consume liquid oxygen as a cost for its use, Titans can act if fitted properly as a mobile jump bridge which allows Fleets to be "dropped" onto a unsuspecting enemy. Standard Jump Bridges are put on Player Owned Stations to connect one system to another and can only be used if both P.O.S.'s are online and if the pilot knows the POS password. Titan JBs can be used by anyone who is in the same fleet as the Titan but only if there is a destination cyno within range. Also note that a Titans JB is limited to around 30 seconds of usage before the Titan pilot must consume more fuel to maintain the Jump bridge connection.
So pilots must be paying attention for when the Titans JB is active so they can jump in and engage the enemy before its too late the portal closes.
**Jump bridges are typically used to bypass gate camps and systems altogether as counter intelligence measures.
Gate: A transwarp device that allows ships to "jump" from one system to another. Each gate can only connect to one nearby system. Gates, depending on their location may be natural choke points to certain systems are a sometimes camped which are referred to as "Gate camps" where players will sit within attack range of the gate in hopes of catching any pilots attempting to use it or coming through from the other side.
Tackle/Pointed: "I've been 'Tackled' at the G95 gate I need assistance!" Being tackled or "pointed" refers to having a enemy friendly or npc lock you and disrupt your warp drive or jump drive, preventing you from escaping by means of warp or jumping. If you are pointed or tackled you must either destroy the person or NPC tackling/pointing you or disrupt their lock through ECM.
**In my experience You say "tackled" when your warp drive has been disrupted and you say "pointed" when referring to a enemies warp drive being disrupted. Though it might just be a matter of preference.
***Warp disruption can be disabled through use of Warp core stabilizer low slot modules. But this is ill advised as such modules greatly inhibit your targeting range and have stiff penalties. Using them is only a desperation tactic to ensure your retreat. Not for fighting. 1 warp core stabilizer can counter 1 unit of disruption. 1 Warp disruptor uses 1 unit of disruption 1 Warp scrambler uses 2 unit of disruption but half the range of a Warp disruptor. So to block the effects of a warp scrambler you wuld need 2 Warp core stabilizers provided there is only 1 enemy tackler. **Interdiction ships cannot be countered by warp core stabs.
ECM: Electronic Counter Measure: There are 5 ECM types. Multi-spectral which effects all types and the racials that effect specfic race types of ships. ECM modules can disuprt a players target lock making them (if the ECM hit lands) lose their target and not target anything for upwards of 20 seconds or longer.
**This can be countered by ECCM modules (electronic counter counter modules)
Bubbles: Refers to Interdiction bubbles: "BUBBLE UP A THE GATE !" interdiction bubbles are fields ranging from 10 to 15 to 50 kilometer bubbles that surround either a launch able warp interdiction bubble or a heavy interdiction cruiser. Any ship caught inside these "bubbles" warp drives and jump drives will not function and cannot escape. "Bubbles up" means for designated interdiction pilots to launch or active their Interdiction units and "Bubbles down" means for said pilots to deactivate or destroy the interdiction units.
H-W: One of the staging system's for the Norther Coalition. Notable for being the target of the Southern Coalition during the Max 2 war.
Ratting: Refers to playing versus environment or non playable characters which are typically referred to as "rats" killing rats in most events results in bountys collected if those pirate NPCs are wanted criminals while other rewards may come from killing rare pilots or specific anti pirate missions.
SB: Stealth bomber, Small Frigates that can fit Torpedo launchers that can normally only be put on Battleship class vessels. Their main purpose however lies with their ability to equip Cover ops cloaking devices which allow vessels to warp while cloaked and use Bomb launchers. Bombs can only be launched from 30km away but yeild a explosive blast 15 kilometers in diameter. Bombs do very high damage but most battlecruiser class ships (or larger)have enough hitpoints in either their shields armor or structure to survive the blast of one. Their terrifying power comes from being launched in tandem with other stealth bombers. SB fleets have been known to take out several battleships and smaller vessels in one bomb run if the enemy fleet has been foolish enough to group their ships too close together. Aside from the bombs the torpedo bonus's that a SB can use should not be ignored. They pack enough DPS alone to rival most Battleships, however because of this overwhelming attack power SB defense are literally paper thin. One well place hit will kill most Stealth Bombers.
Ill be adding to this one over time, as theres more to be told.
Monday, June 21, 2010
First days in the North *cnt* H-W Siege Day 1
I don't know if I want to call it writers block or maybe I've been burnt out on EVE last few days. \o/
Well I'm in a good mood today so here we go.
I don't know how other peeps in the NC feel about this but to me the invasion of H-W by the Southern Coalition was a big big event in my EVE life. It was the first major conflict to take place in a system I thought to be relatively safe.
But Ill get to the invasion in a minute.
I believe this was my 3rd or 4th week in Reliables Inc. And I was 3 days away from being able to fly a Bassilisk (Caldari Logistic ship) When the order to deploy our ships to H-W was given. Normally I kept all of my NC Fleet fit ships in our home system, so I moved 3 drakes 2 Ferox's and 2 Megathrons plus my stealth bomber. Sadly one of my megathrons was very unlucky as it the guns were in H-W (i had just bought them there as there was none in my home system) so when I ran into a small gate camp I simply just died with little resistance from my drones.
Losing the mega by myself was not eligible for reimbursements which dampened my mood. So I took one of the drakes that I had for PVP and made it into a ratting ship. Back in my Empire days I had a sweet Rattlesnake I used to solo lvl 4 missions with ease. It was a perk from cross training Caldari and Gallante. But as I was still not used to the area and had trouble Identifying systems, routes and intel channel. I figured it would un-wise to bring the rattler down to null sec and instead sold it to pay for PVP ships and a Gila blueprint.
Losing that mega left me broke, and while I had Gila blueprint and wanted to use it to rat, I decided ill just buy the minerals once I get enough isk from ratting with the drake. So I started to rat in various system with little rewards. As I was still new to null sec in terms of "PVE" I would just go belt to belt clearing out rats and avoiding reds in lcl.
Later that night I would explore the H-W belts and watch T.V. While my Heavy missiles chewed away at the rats. I saw my wallet climb a few mil got tired and got ready to log off.
I dont recall who said it but someone mentioned it was a good idea for us to not log off in a station but in a deep safe spot or in a POS. Which is very good advice. And as such I logged off in a Majesta POS
Heres some more advice for you. Dont log off in a ratting ship unless you have a pvp ship in a POS =p.
So I go to sleep. Go to church (as its a sunday i think) come back home and log in.
First thing I notice is my mailbox is blinking with 4-5 mails. But I didnt think anything of it.
Second thing I notice is that the POS Im in has been reinforced. Third thing I notice was that I looked around the system and EVERYTHING had been reinforced. I looked at the Intel channels NC channels and it was chaos. I had finally made sense of what happened when I took a look at local and saw nothing but red. H-W was under siege.
CTAs go out. Corp is spammed Alliance is spammed, no carebear was left unturned. This was a Call To Action.
Several things had already gone wrong. Our main fleets were out of system lured away by the SC dropping Sovereignty blockade units in systems drawing our fleets away from H-W. A great number of our players had logged off in H-W station which had about 50 warp disruption bubbles surrounding every bit of it preventing anyone who was foolish enough to undock unable to warp off and face instant death by the campers who awaited them. There were gate camps at every entrance to H-W. The jump bridges were disabled and the enemy had a fairly large capital ship fleet in the system which included several Titans and super carriers.
To make news worse turns out it was a 2-day Russian holiday and they bringing the most numbers meant long lasting trouble. Plus the SC boasted that they were going to hold us there for 5 days until H-W fell into their hands.
However not all was hopeless. Despite being in a ratting drake, I was not the only one to not log off in a station. Calls go out through back channels , everyone who was in H-W and not docked up got in a fleet of mostly sniper BS's and BC's . I dont recall who the FC was at the time but the man was brilliant. It was our 50 man gang vs a 2-3 fleets of 200+ one of which was a cap fleet. We started using gurrila tactics, probing out afk idiots in "safe" spots and killing them. Some of which woke up and called for help only to die or we get away before their Interdictors could catch us. We'd kill here and there. Even got a regular carrier kill at one point.
We had more and more people log on and more and more enemies log off as the so called "US time zone players" came about but were either logged inside the station waiting to be broken out or holding in nearby systems waiting for a chance to enter. So we kept up or hit and run attacks and podded as much as we could. These guys had a longer logistical train to go through to get back to H-W then we did. They die it takes them longer to get back to H-W then it takes us. It also appeared that their carriers were loaded with HIC's and DIC's to help keep up the siege on their end.
H-W had been sieged for I believe 10 hours by the point I logged on. and about 3 hours of guerrilla tactics we started more aggressive tactics. We split up our numbers and did some attacks to lure the enemies off station and managed to sneak a few fast ships out increasing our numbers.
Then the FC did something particularly brilliant. They warped our fleets to two spots in close proximity at a deep deep safe zone. I'm talking over 140 AU's away from H-W station. Halfway warping there we see a Cyno go up and get told its a friendly one
(Cynos allow captial ships to jump from out of system to the system where the cyno was lit)
Also note that once a cyno field is lit be it friendly or hostile EVERYONE in the system can see it and warp to it.
We get word that almost everything the enemy had was rushing to the cyno like a raging bull stampede to the cyno. And when they got there, they said hello to several warp bubbles around the cyno and our sniper fleets to the north and south of them. We killed I believe 12 interdictors that tried to capture our fleets and several battleships I think even a carrier or two before their cap fleet retreated. During this little "distraction" we were able to get a ton of people out of H-W station.
Our guerrilla tactics continued, and more traps were laid sprung and enemies destroyed. Enemies would hunt us attack us attempt to warp bubble us only to see us warp off with very light casualties Eventually while the BS snipers played havoc with the enemy fleets the BC support groups went to work with hit and runs on the stations bubbles in a effort to free our trapped comrades.
We had to run a few times but eventually dropped the bubbles and the order for everyone to undock was given.
The SC was beginning to be overrun. Gate camps were failing more and more Northern Coalition were breaking into the system. The SC just were not able to keep up with their numbers.
NC' caps were jumping in and SC caps were jumping out. The so called 5 day camp or "PR 2.0" as some SC peeps called it lasted roughly 15 hours. Good effort and one heck of a surprise attack. But as Bobby Atlas would later say "We walked into a bear cave popped a few rounds for lulz and waited to see what would happen...well ladies...we got eaten"
Carriers and logistics began repairing the station and POS's while the rest of the NC began Reinforcing the enemy POS's that were dropped in our system earlier that day. I docked up in H-W switched my ratting drake which served me well in that fight for my NC fit Megathron undocked went to a deep safe spot and logged for the night.
The fight was not yet over. The SC was bringing another fight to us shortly we knew it was coming but it was a long day and I needed some rest. I was prepared and thankfully so was alot more players this time around.
Well I'm in a good mood today so here we go.
I don't know how other peeps in the NC feel about this but to me the invasion of H-W by the Southern Coalition was a big big event in my EVE life. It was the first major conflict to take place in a system I thought to be relatively safe.
But Ill get to the invasion in a minute.
I believe this was my 3rd or 4th week in Reliables Inc. And I was 3 days away from being able to fly a Bassilisk (Caldari Logistic ship) When the order to deploy our ships to H-W was given. Normally I kept all of my NC Fleet fit ships in our home system, so I moved 3 drakes 2 Ferox's and 2 Megathrons plus my stealth bomber. Sadly one of my megathrons was very unlucky as it the guns were in H-W (i had just bought them there as there was none in my home system) so when I ran into a small gate camp I simply just died with little resistance from my drones.
Losing the mega by myself was not eligible for reimbursements which dampened my mood. So I took one of the drakes that I had for PVP and made it into a ratting ship. Back in my Empire days I had a sweet Rattlesnake I used to solo lvl 4 missions with ease. It was a perk from cross training Caldari and Gallante. But as I was still not used to the area and had trouble Identifying systems, routes and intel channel. I figured it would un-wise to bring the rattler down to null sec and instead sold it to pay for PVP ships and a Gila blueprint.
Losing that mega left me broke, and while I had Gila blueprint and wanted to use it to rat, I decided ill just buy the minerals once I get enough isk from ratting with the drake. So I started to rat in various system with little rewards. As I was still new to null sec in terms of "PVE" I would just go belt to belt clearing out rats and avoiding reds in lcl.
Later that night I would explore the H-W belts and watch T.V. While my Heavy missiles chewed away at the rats. I saw my wallet climb a few mil got tired and got ready to log off.
I dont recall who said it but someone mentioned it was a good idea for us to not log off in a station but in a deep safe spot or in a POS. Which is very good advice. And as such I logged off in a Majesta POS
Heres some more advice for you. Dont log off in a ratting ship unless you have a pvp ship in a POS =p.
So I go to sleep. Go to church (as its a sunday i think) come back home and log in.
First thing I notice is my mailbox is blinking with 4-5 mails. But I didnt think anything of it.
Second thing I notice is that the POS Im in has been reinforced. Third thing I notice was that I looked around the system and EVERYTHING had been reinforced. I looked at the Intel channels NC channels and it was chaos. I had finally made sense of what happened when I took a look at local and saw nothing but red. H-W was under siege.
CTAs go out. Corp is spammed Alliance is spammed, no carebear was left unturned. This was a Call To Action.
Several things had already gone wrong. Our main fleets were out of system lured away by the SC dropping Sovereignty blockade units in systems drawing our fleets away from H-W. A great number of our players had logged off in H-W station which had about 50 warp disruption bubbles surrounding every bit of it preventing anyone who was foolish enough to undock unable to warp off and face instant death by the campers who awaited them. There were gate camps at every entrance to H-W. The jump bridges were disabled and the enemy had a fairly large capital ship fleet in the system which included several Titans and super carriers.
To make news worse turns out it was a 2-day Russian holiday and they bringing the most numbers meant long lasting trouble. Plus the SC boasted that they were going to hold us there for 5 days until H-W fell into their hands.
However not all was hopeless. Despite being in a ratting drake, I was not the only one to not log off in a station. Calls go out through back channels , everyone who was in H-W and not docked up got in a fleet of mostly sniper BS's and BC's . I dont recall who the FC was at the time but the man was brilliant. It was our 50 man gang vs a 2-3 fleets of 200+ one of which was a cap fleet. We started using gurrila tactics, probing out afk idiots in "safe" spots and killing them. Some of which woke up and called for help only to die or we get away before their Interdictors could catch us. We'd kill here and there. Even got a regular carrier kill at one point.
We had more and more people log on and more and more enemies log off as the so called "US time zone players" came about but were either logged inside the station waiting to be broken out or holding in nearby systems waiting for a chance to enter. So we kept up or hit and run attacks and podded as much as we could. These guys had a longer logistical train to go through to get back to H-W then we did. They die it takes them longer to get back to H-W then it takes us. It also appeared that their carriers were loaded with HIC's and DIC's to help keep up the siege on their end.
H-W had been sieged for I believe 10 hours by the point I logged on. and about 3 hours of guerrilla tactics we started more aggressive tactics. We split up our numbers and did some attacks to lure the enemies off station and managed to sneak a few fast ships out increasing our numbers.
Then the FC did something particularly brilliant. They warped our fleets to two spots in close proximity at a deep deep safe zone. I'm talking over 140 AU's away from H-W station. Halfway warping there we see a Cyno go up and get told its a friendly one
(Cynos allow captial ships to jump from out of system to the system where the cyno was lit)
Also note that once a cyno field is lit be it friendly or hostile EVERYONE in the system can see it and warp to it.
We get word that almost everything the enemy had was rushing to the cyno like a raging bull stampede to the cyno. And when they got there, they said hello to several warp bubbles around the cyno and our sniper fleets to the north and south of them. We killed I believe 12 interdictors that tried to capture our fleets and several battleships I think even a carrier or two before their cap fleet retreated. During this little "distraction" we were able to get a ton of people out of H-W station.
Our guerrilla tactics continued, and more traps were laid sprung and enemies destroyed. Enemies would hunt us attack us attempt to warp bubble us only to see us warp off with very light casualties Eventually while the BS snipers played havoc with the enemy fleets the BC support groups went to work with hit and runs on the stations bubbles in a effort to free our trapped comrades.
We had to run a few times but eventually dropped the bubbles and the order for everyone to undock was given.
The SC was beginning to be overrun. Gate camps were failing more and more Northern Coalition were breaking into the system. The SC just were not able to keep up with their numbers.
NC' caps were jumping in and SC caps were jumping out. The so called 5 day camp or "PR 2.0" as some SC peeps called it lasted roughly 15 hours. Good effort and one heck of a surprise attack. But as Bobby Atlas would later say "We walked into a bear cave popped a few rounds for lulz and waited to see what would happen...well ladies...we got eaten"
Carriers and logistics began repairing the station and POS's while the rest of the NC began Reinforcing the enemy POS's that were dropped in our system earlier that day. I docked up in H-W switched my ratting drake which served me well in that fight for my NC fit Megathron undocked went to a deep safe spot and logged for the night.
The fight was not yet over. The SC was bringing another fight to us shortly we knew it was coming but it was a long day and I needed some rest. I was prepared and thankfully so was alot more players this time around.
Friday, June 18, 2010
First days in the North *continued* "BFF"
Just around the time I start getting used to the typical routes between TVN, to H-W to UMI etc, a CTA goes out, and its a big one apparently. Corps were spammed for numbers particularly for Stealth bombers Dreads Titans, the works. I could've taken out my mega but the idea of a stealth bomber fleet intrigued me and has been something I wanted to do since I was able to fly the ship. Yet again learning to fly in a SB fleet was a completely new experience and I was learning on the fly.
As I would find out later, destination on many NC operations are "unknown" and "need to know". If you ask where you get the standard "spy" rhetoric so its best to just go with the flow and hope whatever you go after is juicy.
Started getting suspicious when I lost count of how many jumps we made. I think I stopped counting after 30. Even got stranger when we encountered a Goon fleet of 200 something odd drakes that joined up with the main fleet.
Before I continue when I first started playing EVE I heard snippets of null sec happenings, of the evil Northern Coalition, the bastards of Goonswarm, the might of Atlas and the Big brother BOB that swooped in to save the day. Boy how things change when you actually get into Null sec and see things for yourself.
That said, meeting with a Goonfleet for the first time was a experience unto it self. Reminded me of the few times I visited 4chans /b/ board just x200. If goons power ran on lcl spam. They would be unstopable. I tip my hat to the goons. They know how to put on a good fight from what Ive seen.
So yeah Goons joined up with the main fleet and I knew something big was going down. The SB fleet starts pulling ahead of the main group and before I now it we're in Delve and told we're en route to Querious (however you spell it) to kill a baby titan in production.
Our SB fleet lands in the system first and scouts out various points to warp in and initiate bombing runs and what not. Flying in a SB fleet you have to listen to the Bomber FC explicitly. Warp exactly when he tells you to because in a SB fleet you cannot see where your wingmates are and if you bump into one of them, odds are you have just killed you and your wingmate.
After we scope out several spots over the Reinforced POS we were told that the enemy is probably going to bring alot to save their baby Titan.
Main fleet arrives and starts blobing the POS, Enemy fleet never shows. IT spindoctors would go on to say "We didnt need that anyhow" or "It was junk parts no Titan was being made in it" riiiiiight.
Oh and right after get started Pandemic Legion hotdrops some caps into the field to help bring the pain to IT. First time I've ever seen Titans in combat \o/
Since enemy fleet was confirmed as a no show FC gave orders for us to approach decloak and get on some kill mails.
Some screenshots of said op
Note that I took damage in that fight because I was stupid and didnt have overview settings right and a few Pandemic legions members were netural to me, so I assumed they were enemy dreads and opened fire to get on some KM, they were kind enough to show me the errors of my ways by almost blowing me up =x. Welp!
I barely survived and continued on blowing up the tower and killing the baby Erebus.
It was in this fleet (I think) the FC had a contest to see who could come up with the best fastest B.F.F. banner that went with BRO FIST FORMATION as opposed to the old Best Friends Forever. I think the prize was like 20 mil but I went and made one up real quick. Some of you guys might have already seen it as I spam it every time BFF spam is called for and it actually got passed around a bit ^_^
It didnt get noticed at first but the attention its getting now is sufficient. I'm a child of the 80s and had a second hand Power glove when I was little. It was crap but awesome at the same time. I loved it when I saw it return to glory with the Angry Video game nerd.
The 80s nostalgia mixed with EVE made for a good combination I guess.
This fleet easily became the second best time I've ever had in a fleet to date. The best time comes up next when H-W gets seiged. o/ Thats all for now.
As I would find out later, destination on many NC operations are "unknown" and "need to know". If you ask where you get the standard "spy" rhetoric so its best to just go with the flow and hope whatever you go after is juicy.
Started getting suspicious when I lost count of how many jumps we made. I think I stopped counting after 30. Even got stranger when we encountered a Goon fleet of 200 something odd drakes that joined up with the main fleet.
Before I continue when I first started playing EVE I heard snippets of null sec happenings, of the evil Northern Coalition, the bastards of Goonswarm, the might of Atlas and the Big brother BOB that swooped in to save the day. Boy how things change when you actually get into Null sec and see things for yourself.
That said, meeting with a Goonfleet for the first time was a experience unto it self. Reminded me of the few times I visited 4chans /b/ board just x200. If goons power ran on lcl spam. They would be unstopable. I tip my hat to the goons. They know how to put on a good fight from what Ive seen.
So yeah Goons joined up with the main fleet and I knew something big was going down. The SB fleet starts pulling ahead of the main group and before I now it we're in Delve and told we're en route to Querious (however you spell it) to kill a baby titan in production.
Our SB fleet lands in the system first and scouts out various points to warp in and initiate bombing runs and what not. Flying in a SB fleet you have to listen to the Bomber FC explicitly. Warp exactly when he tells you to because in a SB fleet you cannot see where your wingmates are and if you bump into one of them, odds are you have just killed you and your wingmate.
After we scope out several spots over the Reinforced POS we were told that the enemy is probably going to bring alot to save their baby Titan.
Main fleet arrives and starts blobing the POS, Enemy fleet never shows. IT spindoctors would go on to say "We didnt need that anyhow" or "It was junk parts no Titan was being made in it" riiiiiight.
Oh and right after get started Pandemic Legion hotdrops some caps into the field to help bring the pain to IT. First time I've ever seen Titans in combat \o/
Since enemy fleet was confirmed as a no show FC gave orders for us to approach decloak and get on some kill mails.
Some screenshots of said op
Note that I took damage in that fight because I was stupid and didnt have overview settings right and a few Pandemic legions members were netural to me, so I assumed they were enemy dreads and opened fire to get on some KM, they were kind enough to show me the errors of my ways by almost blowing me up =x. Welp!
I barely survived and continued on blowing up the tower and killing the baby Erebus.
It was in this fleet (I think) the FC had a contest to see who could come up with the best fastest B.F.F. banner that went with BRO FIST FORMATION as opposed to the old Best Friends Forever. I think the prize was like 20 mil but I went and made one up real quick. Some of you guys might have already seen it as I spam it every time BFF spam is called for and it actually got passed around a bit ^_^
It didnt get noticed at first but the attention its getting now is sufficient. I'm a child of the 80s and had a second hand Power glove when I was little. It was crap but awesome at the same time. I loved it when I saw it return to glory with the Angry Video game nerd.
The 80s nostalgia mixed with EVE made for a good combination I guess.
This fleet easily became the second best time I've ever had in a fleet to date. The best time comes up next when H-W gets seiged. o/ Thats all for now.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
"Hello, I'm a schizophrenic, and so am I." My first days in the NC
A while back when I had just helped get my old corp SOTD off the ground, I decided that Caldari was the route to go it had everything I liked in space ships, Missiles, and shields. So I stopped my Galante Cruiser V skill learning while it was at 43% and started up training for Caldari ships particularly Force Recon. Around the time I joined Reliables I was into topping off my E-War skills. By then I could also fly stealth bombers very effectively just never had enough SB wingmates to ever do any serious damage.
Sadly I learned quickly that caldari are not the PVP ships of choice in null sec particularly the NC (debatable to some peoples) I had always wanted to go the Carrier route eventually which would get me into the Chimera and eventually a Wyvern.This all leads to what I changed my skill plans to but Ill get to that again in a bit.
First day I spent bookmarking Jump bridges using a seemingly out of date map. Learning new lingo from FCs and furiously taking down notes as fast as I could. I had moved down a PVP Rook, Falcon, Nemesis, Raven, Scorpion and 2 drakes with me with enough ammo and fittings to last me about 20 ish fits for said ships.
Day 2 I tried to catch up to a already gone fleet from H-W and learned the first mistake of traveling in 0.0. Never use gates when you can use Jump bridges. Ran smack into a enemy gate camp in D-7 (which is almost always camped \o/ )-1 ship.
I think I made it to another fleet later in my scorpion and I had trouble finding the primary (didn't think to use "history" for designated targets) Jammed 2 random drakes a Mega and a Oneros then got primaried. -1 ship again.
This was around the time I talked to one of our directors and had a very long conversation about pvp ships and while the caldari had a handful of epic ships (Falcon, Onyx, Scorpion, Tengu) overall they're better suited for care-bearing then pvp. It was at that time I adopted a philosophy to go down a skill route that was 50% for myself and 50% to be useful. I had just finished the majority of EWAR skills so I immediate trained up for logistical ships. Because EVERYONE <3's logi's.
It would take me about 12 days to get the pre-req skills for logistics since I already had Caldari Cruisers to V. The director I had talked to recommended I take the Amarr route and get into their BS, Carriers, logistics and while that would have been awesome. Sadly it would've taken twice as long if not longer then my current skill plan. I opted to fall back on my Gallatne roots since I already had quite a amount of skill points there. This meant building up Megathrons, Brutixs and whatnot.
I bought what I could in our home system but the market even in Tribute was low at the time and I couldn't get everything. So I had the brilliant idea to take my falcon up to high sec and buy the supplies I needed.As I mentioned in my last post when I first joined Reliables we were in 3 war decs between AAA, -A- (I think) and some other corp I cant remember COW maybe. I knew that we were in a war dec but I have dodged station campers in falcons before just never in Jita. I figured if I spotted WTs on overview I could burn down away from station with MWD on quickly cloak and warp off. This was quite possibly my dumbest moment in EVE. I actually make it to Jita spend 20 minutes buying guns for my megas, skill books and I think a spare set of +3 implants click the undock button...
blackscreen...
loaded back home in my clone station...
Yes I was instapopped and podded before I even loaded outside.
Was out 200 mill not including the ship loss. Oh and since I didnt have forum access it turns out I broke a important rule "NO LOSS MAILS IN JITA DURING WAR DEC'S" >_<. Was forgiven then given I didnt have access at the time. Still was a stupid mistake. Swore it would never happen again. And to this date, it hasn't. -1 ship. I forget what the other 2 were but at the end of day 5. Here I am in Null sec out 5 ships and little to show for it. Not looking good so far. I hoped my superiors didn't notice either.
I mine on my alt account like crazy and get some isk to make up for the loss's build me a mega with 2 back up BC's for CTAs with NC fittings. Its a Friday night and I hear about "Friday night lights" or something like that. It was apparently a drunk roam where you flew cheap crap under 10 mil or less and blobbed w/e you could to death. So using the best of the cheap stuff I could fly I fit up a 3 million isk blackbird using existing parts I had to keep the cost down insure it and head off to join these guys.
I forget where the roam took us but halfway into it I hear the FC call over TS; "Uh looks like things are pretty hectic in **-*** (I forget where) so we're getting pulled into a reinforcement fleet in H-W"
Well crap, I thought to myself. At the time all my PVP ships were in the home system in Vale so there was no time to grab em. Screw it I thought and charged forth with the fleet.
Some screenshots from said fleet
I consider this my first true NC fleet because I went throughout the entire fight didn't die and got on a handful of killmails. It was the most fun I had playin EVE since I started. It was also the first time Ive ever seen a Titan in person.
(was used as a Jump Bridge) Was exciting and a sign of things to come. By my 10th day my kills were tied with my loss's on battle clinic. And a few days after went above and beyond it. I was on the route to Logistics with the basilisk and decided to Finish Galante cruiser to V since it was already at 43% and have the option to fly the Onereos or the Basilisk. I flew megas whenever LR BS calls were issued and Ferox's whenever I lost the BS's.
I think that'll be all for now. Almost caught up to present day Shenanigans.
o7 until then
Sadly I learned quickly that caldari are not the PVP ships of choice in null sec particularly the NC (debatable to some peoples) I had always wanted to go the Carrier route eventually which would get me into the Chimera and eventually a Wyvern.This all leads to what I changed my skill plans to but Ill get to that again in a bit.
First day I spent bookmarking Jump bridges using a seemingly out of date map. Learning new lingo from FCs and furiously taking down notes as fast as I could. I had moved down a PVP Rook, Falcon, Nemesis, Raven, Scorpion and 2 drakes with me with enough ammo and fittings to last me about 20 ish fits for said ships.
Day 2 I tried to catch up to a already gone fleet from H-W and learned the first mistake of traveling in 0.0. Never use gates when you can use Jump bridges. Ran smack into a enemy gate camp in D-7 (which is almost always camped \o/ )-1 ship.
I think I made it to another fleet later in my scorpion and I had trouble finding the primary (didn't think to use "history" for designated targets) Jammed 2 random drakes a Mega and a Oneros then got primaried. -1 ship again.
This was around the time I talked to one of our directors and had a very long conversation about pvp ships and while the caldari had a handful of epic ships (Falcon, Onyx, Scorpion, Tengu) overall they're better suited for care-bearing then pvp. It was at that time I adopted a philosophy to go down a skill route that was 50% for myself and 50% to be useful. I had just finished the majority of EWAR skills so I immediate trained up for logistical ships. Because EVERYONE <3's logi's.
It would take me about 12 days to get the pre-req skills for logistics since I already had Caldari Cruisers to V. The director I had talked to recommended I take the Amarr route and get into their BS, Carriers, logistics and while that would have been awesome. Sadly it would've taken twice as long if not longer then my current skill plan. I opted to fall back on my Gallatne roots since I already had quite a amount of skill points there. This meant building up Megathrons, Brutixs and whatnot.
I bought what I could in our home system but the market even in Tribute was low at the time and I couldn't get everything. So I had the brilliant idea to take my falcon up to high sec and buy the supplies I needed.As I mentioned in my last post when I first joined Reliables we were in 3 war decs between AAA, -A- (I think) and some other corp I cant remember COW maybe. I knew that we were in a war dec but I have dodged station campers in falcons before just never in Jita. I figured if I spotted WTs on overview I could burn down away from station with MWD on quickly cloak and warp off. This was quite possibly my dumbest moment in EVE. I actually make it to Jita spend 20 minutes buying guns for my megas, skill books and I think a spare set of +3 implants click the undock button...
blackscreen...
loaded back home in my clone station...
Yes I was instapopped and podded before I even loaded outside.
Was out 200 mill not including the ship loss. Oh and since I didnt have forum access it turns out I broke a important rule "NO LOSS MAILS IN JITA DURING WAR DEC'S" >_<. Was forgiven then given I didnt have access at the time. Still was a stupid mistake. Swore it would never happen again. And to this date, it hasn't. -1 ship. I forget what the other 2 were but at the end of day 5. Here I am in Null sec out 5 ships and little to show for it. Not looking good so far. I hoped my superiors didn't notice either.
I mine on my alt account like crazy and get some isk to make up for the loss's build me a mega with 2 back up BC's for CTAs with NC fittings. Its a Friday night and I hear about "Friday night lights" or something like that. It was apparently a drunk roam where you flew cheap crap under 10 mil or less and blobbed w/e you could to death. So using the best of the cheap stuff I could fly I fit up a 3 million isk blackbird using existing parts I had to keep the cost down insure it and head off to join these guys.
I forget where the roam took us but halfway into it I hear the FC call over TS; "Uh looks like things are pretty hectic in **-*** (I forget where) so we're getting pulled into a reinforcement fleet in H-W"
Well crap, I thought to myself. At the time all my PVP ships were in the home system in Vale so there was no time to grab em. Screw it I thought and charged forth with the fleet.
Some screenshots from said fleet
I consider this my first true NC fleet because I went throughout the entire fight didn't die and got on a handful of killmails. It was the most fun I had playin EVE since I started. It was also the first time Ive ever seen a Titan in person.
(was used as a Jump Bridge) Was exciting and a sign of things to come. By my 10th day my kills were tied with my loss's on battle clinic. And a few days after went above and beyond it. I was on the route to Logistics with the basilisk and decided to Finish Galante cruiser to V since it was already at 43% and have the option to fly the Onereos or the Basilisk. I flew megas whenever LR BS calls were issued and Ferox's whenever I lost the BS's.
I think that'll be all for now. Almost caught up to present day Shenanigans.
o7 until then
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
My EVE story part 2
For those who have not seen the Dominion trailer for EVE online I highly recommend it. Though it does not accurately reflect typical Null sec fleet PVP it is interesting spin on how a actual fight went down.
My first thought of Null sec before this trailer was that it was a wasteland of destruction where only the best survived similar to PVP only areas in Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies. The Dominion trailer (regardless of how it in-accurately depicted typical fleet battles) got me highly motivated to go to Null sec.
When Shepards of the dead were formed it was basically me, Jimmynooo, Crigga (CEO) and Avermaki. Shortly after the wormhole exodus and the dissolution of the old alliance several members that were good friends of Crigga's who were in other corps at the time came to join us. After some talk we formed up and discussed plans to go to Null sec.
In order for us as a corp to go down there, there was basically two ways.
1:Become pets
2:Form a alliance and force our way into 0.0 space
Option 1 was out of the question, pets have to pay rent, almost never get to go out on invasion fleets. Typically all they ever do is rat to afford the ridiculous prices they have to pay for rent and home defense when the masters call for it.
That left option 2. We decided that even with option 2 we would need strong financial backing to afford ships , skill books modules and w/e we needed so we could keep our PVPers well stocked. To that end we began plans for setting up a high sec POS and worked on getting standings up.
Not too long after that we join a alliance which was apart of a small coalition of alliances with the aim to join with Gentlemens club as partners not pets. However due to the crap politics that went on with this coalition we had to move our bases of operations from Mimmnitar space to Caldari and back about 3 times.
To put it bluntly we were fed up. It was around this time, the alliance we were in broke off from the small coalition yet retained its focus for 0.0 space. Led by "Jerseys Best Dancers" aka JBD and "Black Tower Syndicate" aka BTS who were a null sec corp for a short period of time. They brought in two more corps to our alliance and we constructed a high sec pos in a system called Steggete which was surrounded by two low sec systems which acted as a double edged sword.
On the one hand it was a buffer keeping most griefers and would be spys away on the other hand a fair amount of PVPers would come heading to neighboring systems making it a risky base of operations.
Around this time Crigga's computer suffers complications and dies. After about 2 weeks of leadership void I step up to become the defacto CEO and try to get operations underway, mining ops, WH ops, and continue our plans to Null sec.
Meanwhile our alliance takes on a new corp named "Virgina Company".
By taking them in this earned our alliance 2 war decs. Which with some effort were fought off and eventually dropped. I never did confirm how they got the war decs but if VC's behavior in alliance chat was anything of a indicator its no surprise that they did and that we would get more because of the behavior of their players.
After the 5th War dec me along with the alliance leadership determined enough was enough and decided to fight against our enemies as they were active in hunting us. (particularly VC members). We organize 11-20 man fleets and station camp them to which they play station games with us and score kills every now and then.
BTS, and SOTD (our corp) commit the majority of the forces but either get turned back or disband due to logoffski's. VC formed up for one fleet but was for the most part no shows for CTA's.
After a meeting with alliance leadership we decided to fall back to steggete if the enemy logged on and forced them to fight on the gates, on our terms where station games couldnt help them. It worked and they're attacks were practically non existent for a few days. Sadly several VC members got complacent started traveling to Dodixie with war targets online and got camped ganked or worse. Dont get me started on the idiocy that was their corp leaders.
Fed up with VC the war decs and the inaction of the founders of the alliance SOTD pulls out on my command.
The war targets threat to re'dec us unless a ransom is paid which I told them to "put their money where their mouth was" and went back to the drawing board to get to Null sec. They never carried out their threats.
BTS one of the main corps who fought and died with us in the last war decided to continue our working together in the name of eventually getting to null sec. No official alliance was formed but we set each other to blue +10 and continued to operate as usual. Plans were formed and we started research and production to get capital up to afford the various things a Null sec corp would eventually need. The foundation of logistics and ship production were essential.
After a very long talk with a friend of mine in Project Nemesis we discovered and enacted a plan for a 3rd option to get into Null sec.
A Mega corp.
A mega corp isn't anything like a alliance or a standard corporation. It is a corporation merger into a new entity. A new larger corporation. The plan was to combine BTS's and SOTD's industrial players and PVPers to become strong and more productive as a single entity, eventually get more corps to merge with us and join yes join not become pets with a Major Null sec alliance.
At first the plan met with resistance from BTS leadership who wanted to take offers to join with a already established Null sec corp. I argued that neither corp was ready for the move to Null sec yet as we needed more players and our current players to become more skilled. There was also offers for us to join Systematic Chaos but again the same argument was made, We simply were not ready as a whole.
Ultimately after several meetings it was decided by all involved that the most logical way for both corps to make it into Null sec would be the Mega corp. Egos would have to be set aside, leadership would be restructured and agreed on by all party's involved and above all patience and dedication to work towards the common goal.
This did not come to pass. One of the directors in our corp attempted a coup once he discovered he would not retain his director status in the new corp (which failed horribly as he is a idiot). BTS also showed signs of not wanting to commit even after agreeing that they would. And our official CEO was still MIA.
Eventually BTS's impatience and eagerness to return to null sec proved to be the undoing of the Mega corp. They had secretly taken the offer to join a null sec corp who owned 1 sov system and had backed out of their agreement with SOTD. They had also secretly recruited several SOTD members into joining them.
Patience was not a virtue for them.
SOTD was left a broken mess. CEO still missing, several key players leaving to join BTS and some to join Systematic Chaos. All the work that I and several others had been putting into getting SOTD to null sec were laid to waste.
I resigned my director position and left the corp.
I spent the next few days contemplating what I was going to do. I still wanted to go to null sec so I contacted my friend from PRONs who got me in touch with a friend of his in Majesta Empire in a corp called Reliables INC. aka 23-7.
I wasnt even sure if i was ready for null sec but after talking to both my friend from PRONs and the recruiter in 23-7 they were confident that I was qualified. Which isnt saying much imo.
In retrospect I really wished I had moved things down there before I joined wouldve had a few less loss's. At the time I joined 23-7 they were involved in 3 war decs not to mention Max 2 was in full swing (NC vs SC) I was able to get the majority of my PVP ships and modules to the corps logistics system to be jumped down to our home system.
I knew things in this corp was going to go well when I had packed up my gear to the letter where the carrier pilot who helped me haul my stuff down said "This is the easiest move Ive ever had to do for a new guy...I like you already"...
Before I continue Ill say this
Visiting Null sec
and living in it are two very very very different things.
I knew this before even coming up to the North. But I never pictured how right I ended up being. I basically relearned how to play the game. Bought a note book and pen. Took tons of notes. (which is really helpful to new null sec pilots I highly recommend it)
But that is the end of my EVE story thus far.
Ill start my Null sec story next time. Or at least The story thus far.
Let the good times roll
My first thought of Null sec before this trailer was that it was a wasteland of destruction where only the best survived similar to PVP only areas in Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies. The Dominion trailer (regardless of how it in-accurately depicted typical fleet battles) got me highly motivated to go to Null sec.
When Shepards of the dead were formed it was basically me, Jimmynooo, Crigga (CEO) and Avermaki. Shortly after the wormhole exodus and the dissolution of the old alliance several members that were good friends of Crigga's who were in other corps at the time came to join us. After some talk we formed up and discussed plans to go to Null sec.
In order for us as a corp to go down there, there was basically two ways.
1:Become pets
2:Form a alliance and force our way into 0.0 space
Option 1 was out of the question, pets have to pay rent, almost never get to go out on invasion fleets. Typically all they ever do is rat to afford the ridiculous prices they have to pay for rent and home defense when the masters call for it.
That left option 2. We decided that even with option 2 we would need strong financial backing to afford ships , skill books modules and w/e we needed so we could keep our PVPers well stocked. To that end we began plans for setting up a high sec POS and worked on getting standings up.
Not too long after that we join a alliance which was apart of a small coalition of alliances with the aim to join with Gentlemens club as partners not pets. However due to the crap politics that went on with this coalition we had to move our bases of operations from Mimmnitar space to Caldari and back about 3 times.
To put it bluntly we were fed up. It was around this time, the alliance we were in broke off from the small coalition yet retained its focus for 0.0 space. Led by "Jerseys Best Dancers" aka JBD and "Black Tower Syndicate" aka BTS who were a null sec corp for a short period of time. They brought in two more corps to our alliance and we constructed a high sec pos in a system called Steggete which was surrounded by two low sec systems which acted as a double edged sword.
On the one hand it was a buffer keeping most griefers and would be spys away on the other hand a fair amount of PVPers would come heading to neighboring systems making it a risky base of operations.
Around this time Crigga's computer suffers complications and dies. After about 2 weeks of leadership void I step up to become the defacto CEO and try to get operations underway, mining ops, WH ops, and continue our plans to Null sec.
Meanwhile our alliance takes on a new corp named "Virgina Company".
By taking them in this earned our alliance 2 war decs. Which with some effort were fought off and eventually dropped. I never did confirm how they got the war decs but if VC's behavior in alliance chat was anything of a indicator its no surprise that they did and that we would get more because of the behavior of their players.
After the 5th War dec me along with the alliance leadership determined enough was enough and decided to fight against our enemies as they were active in hunting us. (particularly VC members). We organize 11-20 man fleets and station camp them to which they play station games with us and score kills every now and then.
BTS, and SOTD (our corp) commit the majority of the forces but either get turned back or disband due to logoffski's. VC formed up for one fleet but was for the most part no shows for CTA's.
After a meeting with alliance leadership we decided to fall back to steggete if the enemy logged on and forced them to fight on the gates, on our terms where station games couldnt help them. It worked and they're attacks were practically non existent for a few days. Sadly several VC members got complacent started traveling to Dodixie with war targets online and got camped ganked or worse. Dont get me started on the idiocy that was their corp leaders.
Fed up with VC the war decs and the inaction of the founders of the alliance SOTD pulls out on my command.
The war targets threat to re'dec us unless a ransom is paid which I told them to "put their money where their mouth was" and went back to the drawing board to get to Null sec. They never carried out their threats.
BTS one of the main corps who fought and died with us in the last war decided to continue our working together in the name of eventually getting to null sec. No official alliance was formed but we set each other to blue +10 and continued to operate as usual. Plans were formed and we started research and production to get capital up to afford the various things a Null sec corp would eventually need. The foundation of logistics and ship production were essential.
After a very long talk with a friend of mine in Project Nemesis we discovered and enacted a plan for a 3rd option to get into Null sec.
A Mega corp.
A mega corp isn't anything like a alliance or a standard corporation. It is a corporation merger into a new entity. A new larger corporation. The plan was to combine BTS's and SOTD's industrial players and PVPers to become strong and more productive as a single entity, eventually get more corps to merge with us and join yes join not become pets with a Major Null sec alliance.
At first the plan met with resistance from BTS leadership who wanted to take offers to join with a already established Null sec corp. I argued that neither corp was ready for the move to Null sec yet as we needed more players and our current players to become more skilled. There was also offers for us to join Systematic Chaos but again the same argument was made, We simply were not ready as a whole.
Ultimately after several meetings it was decided by all involved that the most logical way for both corps to make it into Null sec would be the Mega corp. Egos would have to be set aside, leadership would be restructured and agreed on by all party's involved and above all patience and dedication to work towards the common goal.
This did not come to pass. One of the directors in our corp attempted a coup once he discovered he would not retain his director status in the new corp (which failed horribly as he is a idiot). BTS also showed signs of not wanting to commit even after agreeing that they would. And our official CEO was still MIA.
Eventually BTS's impatience and eagerness to return to null sec proved to be the undoing of the Mega corp. They had secretly taken the offer to join a null sec corp who owned 1 sov system and had backed out of their agreement with SOTD. They had also secretly recruited several SOTD members into joining them.
Patience was not a virtue for them.
SOTD was left a broken mess. CEO still missing, several key players leaving to join BTS and some to join Systematic Chaos. All the work that I and several others had been putting into getting SOTD to null sec were laid to waste.
I resigned my director position and left the corp.
I spent the next few days contemplating what I was going to do. I still wanted to go to null sec so I contacted my friend from PRONs who got me in touch with a friend of his in Majesta Empire in a corp called Reliables INC. aka 23-7.
I wasnt even sure if i was ready for null sec but after talking to both my friend from PRONs and the recruiter in 23-7 they were confident that I was qualified. Which isnt saying much imo.
In retrospect I really wished I had moved things down there before I joined wouldve had a few less loss's. At the time I joined 23-7 they were involved in 3 war decs not to mention Max 2 was in full swing (NC vs SC) I was able to get the majority of my PVP ships and modules to the corps logistics system to be jumped down to our home system.
I knew things in this corp was going to go well when I had packed up my gear to the letter where the carrier pilot who helped me haul my stuff down said "This is the easiest move Ive ever had to do for a new guy...I like you already"...
Before I continue Ill say this
Visiting Null sec
and living in it are two very very very different things.
I knew this before even coming up to the North. But I never pictured how right I ended up being. I basically relearned how to play the game. Bought a note book and pen. Took tons of notes. (which is really helpful to new null sec pilots I highly recommend it)
But that is the end of my EVE story thus far.
Ill start my Null sec story next time. Or at least The story thus far.
Let the good times roll
Monday, June 14, 2010
Greetings and "My EVE story part 1"
Hello world....new to the "blogging fad" and somewhat new to the EVE online community. I've never been real good on introductions and what not so lets get to it.
I started this blog to tell those that know me and those that don't about my time in a little game known as EVE online.
My gamertag in this game as in every game I put effort into is "Apackof12Ninjas" The name comes from a joke during a FPS game and I will tell that story at another time.
Currently I am a proud member of "Reliables INC" aka 23-7 corporate member of Majesta Empire allied to the Northern Coalition. But before I get into all that I think I will recap my history in EVE online.
Lets see....how did I come across EVE...
I frequent several forums on the interwebs and one day whilest talking to a then friend on one of them I came across a thread depicting this story known as "The Great Scam"
It truly sparked my interest into this wonderful dog eat dog universe and I have always been a fan of Sci-Fi spaceship blowing each other up. (IE Star Trek Star Wars etc) So when a few forum buddies asked me to try it out with them I did.
I was deciding what race to start out with and was told "You can pick the race with missiles, lasers or guns or the one with robots that fly around and do your bidding (drones)"
Naturally I choose the race with the robots (Gallante) not knowing a thing about the game other then what I read in "The Great Scam" and from the stories my forum buddies told me. I entered the game and this little old joke did'nt do the learning curve justice. EVE online is one tough game to get used to, in fact I'm still getting used to it.
I spent and lost several hundred million isk of me and my buddies money. Never even scored any kills until I was picked up by a training corp. Which was kind enough to show me the ropes but was at the time weighed down by too much incompetent leadership (excluding the CEO) and not enough base players so we went our separate ways. At the time of the split I had finally gotten one of my best friends to start playing the game and we had just joined a new corp in a alliance that lived inside a class 3 wormhole.
Learned alot of things in there. Such as:
Never outstay your welcome in other wormholes
Don't simply warp to someone screaming for help (organize fleet first)
Getting that many people to permanently live in a wormholes is retarded.
oh and never smack talk in local...
We had around 120-200 players living in one class 3 wormhole got constantly raided by other wormholes and could not win a fight to literally save our ships with rare exception.
By the time we had some new corps with some capable FCs (Fleet Commander) step up the beginning of the end had already started.
Hulkageddon 2 was in full swing and one of the former founders of the alliance's alts corp had lost several retrievers and hulks. In response he proceeded to smack in local which earned them a war dec which put their high sec POS (player owned station) at risk. He cries for help and one of the current alliance leaders gets roughly 1/4 of the alliance leadership to agree and war dec the corp that war dec'ed the former alliance leaders corp. Those few then lied to the rest of the leadership and told us that the former leader was the victim not the cause of this mess.
We organize (pathetically) go out and blob/camp the enemy corp and what does our leadership and members decide to do? Smack talk in local...and I dont mean that mildly. They really just stupidly go at them.
Little did our alliance know but local smack talk was drawing much un-wanted attention from a Merc corp known as "Hells Rejects" who followed us to our wormhole scouted us and wanted to make a example of us to show what happens when you smack talk that much in local.
The first corp that dec'ed us droppd the dec but our idiotic leaders wanted blood and re-dec'ed them.
Shortly there after we get war dec'ed by Hells Rejects. The alliance leadership panics, I push for the war dec against the original corp that dec'ed us to be dropped as The guy we were helping out refused to help us, which was agreed to, then promptly ignored. The arrogance and egos of these so called alliance leaders was astounding if not pathetic. But they were quickly put in their place in the events to follow. One of the alliance leader again unilaterally decided that calling in all their high sec newblets into the WH was best idea to avoid overwhelming loss's but failed to realize that calling in that many people into a WH was bound to attract unwanted attention, and that led The Hells Rejects straight to us.
Soon enough The Rejects make it into our WH via their scouts and pop several of our pilots. One of which called for assistance and was ignored. Due to this inaction and the gross incompetence of the leadership him and his corp decided to pull out of the WH and make negotiations with the Rejects for a "Cease fire" which was honored, however as they were moving supplies out of the WH and new member from one of the main corps claimed to have been fired upon by the corp leaving. Which resulted in the overzealous attack on the leaving corp which immediately brought in reinforcements and decimated the attacking force with the help of Hells Rejects. Me and my small corp were stunned by this and the witch hunt that followed.
We made the decision to secretly leave the alliance and wormhole that night. After negotiating with the corp that left and with Hells Rejects we secretly took down our POS and got almost everything out Right before we got our last transport out the rejects respectfully dropped the cease fire and we lost one transport ship. Only had a small hangar in it, afterward we quickly left the alliance.
We were immediately branded "traitors" and were KOS to those left in the WH which was funny as we had nothing in the wormhole and never planned on coming back.
Shortly after we left the alliance quickly dissolved. Only to be reformed (somewhat) later under the same name. From then on I worked with a good in game friend named Crigga with a corp called Shepards of the dead and came up with the goal of going to Null sec, and spent the next couple of months working towards that goal.
My history in this game isnt that long compared to most and this to be honest is the short version. Good news is I'm halfway there. More to come later including the dissolving of the shepards followed by my Trek to the NC during their war with the south The siege of H-W and more.
Like any of you care =p
o7
I started this blog to tell those that know me and those that don't about my time in a little game known as EVE online.
My gamertag in this game as in every game I put effort into is "Apackof12Ninjas" The name comes from a joke during a FPS game and I will tell that story at another time.
Currently I am a proud member of "Reliables INC" aka 23-7 corporate member of Majesta Empire allied to the Northern Coalition. But before I get into all that I think I will recap my history in EVE online.
Lets see....how did I come across EVE...
I frequent several forums on the interwebs and one day whilest talking to a then friend on one of them I came across a thread depicting this story known as "The Great Scam"
It truly sparked my interest into this wonderful dog eat dog universe and I have always been a fan of Sci-Fi spaceship blowing each other up. (IE Star Trek Star Wars etc) So when a few forum buddies asked me to try it out with them I did.
I was deciding what race to start out with and was told "You can pick the race with missiles, lasers or guns or the one with robots that fly around and do your bidding (drones)"
Naturally I choose the race with the robots (Gallante) not knowing a thing about the game other then what I read in "The Great Scam" and from the stories my forum buddies told me. I entered the game and this little old joke did'nt do the learning curve justice. EVE online is one tough game to get used to, in fact I'm still getting used to it.
I spent and lost several hundred million isk of me and my buddies money. Never even scored any kills until I was picked up by a training corp. Which was kind enough to show me the ropes but was at the time weighed down by too much incompetent leadership (excluding the CEO) and not enough base players so we went our separate ways. At the time of the split I had finally gotten one of my best friends to start playing the game and we had just joined a new corp in a alliance that lived inside a class 3 wormhole.
Learned alot of things in there. Such as:
Never outstay your welcome in other wormholes
Don't simply warp to someone screaming for help (organize fleet first)
Getting that many people to permanently live in a wormholes is retarded.
oh and never smack talk in local...
We had around 120-200 players living in one class 3 wormhole got constantly raided by other wormholes and could not win a fight to literally save our ships with rare exception.
By the time we had some new corps with some capable FCs (Fleet Commander) step up the beginning of the end had already started.
Hulkageddon 2 was in full swing and one of the former founders of the alliance's alts corp had lost several retrievers and hulks. In response he proceeded to smack in local which earned them a war dec which put their high sec POS (player owned station) at risk. He cries for help and one of the current alliance leaders gets roughly 1/4 of the alliance leadership to agree and war dec the corp that war dec'ed the former alliance leaders corp. Those few then lied to the rest of the leadership and told us that the former leader was the victim not the cause of this mess.
We organize (pathetically) go out and blob/camp the enemy corp and what does our leadership and members decide to do? Smack talk in local...and I dont mean that mildly. They really just stupidly go at them.
Little did our alliance know but local smack talk was drawing much un-wanted attention from a Merc corp known as "Hells Rejects" who followed us to our wormhole scouted us and wanted to make a example of us to show what happens when you smack talk that much in local.
The first corp that dec'ed us droppd the dec but our idiotic leaders wanted blood and re-dec'ed them.
Shortly there after we get war dec'ed by Hells Rejects. The alliance leadership panics, I push for the war dec against the original corp that dec'ed us to be dropped as The guy we were helping out refused to help us, which was agreed to, then promptly ignored. The arrogance and egos of these so called alliance leaders was astounding if not pathetic. But they were quickly put in their place in the events to follow. One of the alliance leader again unilaterally decided that calling in all their high sec newblets into the WH was best idea to avoid overwhelming loss's but failed to realize that calling in that many people into a WH was bound to attract unwanted attention, and that led The Hells Rejects straight to us.
Soon enough The Rejects make it into our WH via their scouts and pop several of our pilots. One of which called for assistance and was ignored. Due to this inaction and the gross incompetence of the leadership him and his corp decided to pull out of the WH and make negotiations with the Rejects for a "Cease fire" which was honored, however as they were moving supplies out of the WH and new member from one of the main corps claimed to have been fired upon by the corp leaving. Which resulted in the overzealous attack on the leaving corp which immediately brought in reinforcements and decimated the attacking force with the help of Hells Rejects. Me and my small corp were stunned by this and the witch hunt that followed.
We made the decision to secretly leave the alliance and wormhole that night. After negotiating with the corp that left and with Hells Rejects we secretly took down our POS and got almost everything out Right before we got our last transport out the rejects respectfully dropped the cease fire and we lost one transport ship. Only had a small hangar in it, afterward we quickly left the alliance.
We were immediately branded "traitors" and were KOS to those left in the WH which was funny as we had nothing in the wormhole and never planned on coming back.
Shortly after we left the alliance quickly dissolved. Only to be reformed (somewhat) later under the same name. From then on I worked with a good in game friend named Crigga with a corp called Shepards of the dead and came up with the goal of going to Null sec, and spent the next couple of months working towards that goal.
My history in this game isnt that long compared to most and this to be honest is the short version. Good news is I'm halfway there. More to come later including the dissolving of the shepards followed by my Trek to the NC during their war with the south The siege of H-W and more.
Like any of you care =p
o7
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