Blog Banter #61 - Origin State
Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 61st edition and last of 2014! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page
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"What would we encourage ALL new players to do in their first month to get them to subscribe long term, if we had to give out one set of advice for everyone (which we do if we're giving general advice)?"
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The problem with generic advice is that it is well, generic. It's hard to give a set of "one size fits all" directions in any game much less the sandbox/sandpit that is EVE. You could give a "one size fits most" sort of advice such as join a corp, don't mine or get into PvP.
But what if you like playing solo? Or like mining and the building that goes along with it? What if you get more thrills shooting red crosses instead of red boxes?
My advice is even more basic.
Try Everything.
Give Mining a go. Do some missions. Explore. Get ships blown up. If you like it then keep at it until you don't. Don't like it? Try something else until you find your niche. There are as many playstyles as there are players.
EVE isn't about min-maxing your character for one task. The skill system prevents that. You can only apply so many skill points to one activity and you can get by in that activity without perfect skills. Once you advance to, say, perfect mining skills (or frigates, manufacturing etc) you're not done advancing. Higher SP characters aren't necessarily better than an newer player but they are likely to be experts in more areas of the game than the new player. So take advantage of the fact that you have no limit to the things one character can do given enough time.
The second piece of advice I would give to all new players is to use the resources available. And the best resources are other players. Ask questions of veteran players. Join a corp if that suits you. Lurk in public channels. Read the assorted wiki pages out there. Read blogs. Just by listening to or reading about other players exploits and blunders you can learn about whole new aspects of the game. Personally, I don't think I would have trained into stealth bombers if I hadn't seen JonnyPew's guide to hunting explorers. Eve if you prefer to play solo it's great to see what others are doing and open doors to new ways to play.
So, get on out there. Explore New Eden. Explore the game. Find what suits you and don't let anyone tell you you're "doing it wrong"
Fly Safe out there!
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Patience...
... is a virtue. Turns out the saying is true. I suppose "Good things come to those who wait" would be applicable here as well.
I log on and find 3 null-sec type data and relic site in our wormhole. Not bad. I could go for some more loot. I do see probes in the system on D-scan though. Hmm, with 4 connecting wormholes today I might want to wait until things cool down a bit before running sites. Then I see an Astero.
Let's see if 3 relic and data sites are enough bait for him. I fly to each site and find him in one of them. I bookmark a nearby asteroid to where he was hacking and bounce out of the site and back in about 15km off of him. I'm in my own Astero but this one fit for PvP rather than exploration. He seems engrossed in hacking so I decloak and spam the lock button while trying to get a bump off. He warps off. Damn that 5 second targeting delay.
15 minutes later...
The Astero is back. I find him at a second site. Bounce off a bookmark and try again. Same result.
30 minutes later....
Once again my friend is paying a visit. This time to the third site. To hell with the 5 second delay. I'm grabbing my Nemesis. I grab the stealth bomber from the POS and decide against staying scannable to refit to rockets and stick with the torpedo load out. I warp to a safe then bouce back to a bookmark inside the site. He's sitting 15 km off of me. Decloak. Lock. Point. Double Paint. Torps away. He melts in one volley. Quick lesson there. Don't sit still while hacking,
Also, don't stick around when someone is trying to kill you. He was patient. I was more so.
I log on and find 3 null-sec type data and relic site in our wormhole. Not bad. I could go for some more loot. I do see probes in the system on D-scan though. Hmm, with 4 connecting wormholes today I might want to wait until things cool down a bit before running sites. Then I see an Astero.
Let's see if 3 relic and data sites are enough bait for him. I fly to each site and find him in one of them. I bookmark a nearby asteroid to where he was hacking and bounce out of the site and back in about 15km off of him. I'm in my own Astero but this one fit for PvP rather than exploration. He seems engrossed in hacking so I decloak and spam the lock button while trying to get a bump off. He warps off. Damn that 5 second targeting delay.
15 minutes later...
The Astero is back. I find him at a second site. Bounce off a bookmark and try again. Same result.
30 minutes later....
Once again my friend is paying a visit. This time to the third site. To hell with the 5 second delay. I'm grabbing my Nemesis. I grab the stealth bomber from the POS and decide against staying scannable to refit to rockets and stick with the torpedo load out. I warp to a safe then bouce back to a bookmark inside the site. He's sitting 15 km off of me. Decloak. Lock. Point. Double Paint. Torps away. He melts in one volley. Quick lesson there. Don't sit still while hacking,
Also, don't stick around when someone is trying to kill you. He was patient. I was more so.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Luck or Lack Thereof
Just something I've noticed in my wormhole adventures. If I'm the only one in a WH I find plenty of targets that I can't tackle on my own. However, if I'm with a gang no targets are found.
Today I was finishing off the last site (huffing gas) in our C1. I hear the WH jump noise from the picket I set up and I pull my venture out of the site. Checking the picket I see an Onyx followed by a Loki and an Ishtar. The Onyx bubbles and they sit there. And they wait. I'm sitting about 40km of the hole at this point.
If the rest of the boys were on at the time we might have risked a fight. But I sure wasn't going to send my Stratios in there to die alone. So, They sit there. And I sit there. And we wait. Aboyt 45 minutes pass and they leave back out the static.
But not before sending a Helios in. No probes were ever launched so I suspect the scout is still in here. If they come back around I hope we'll have some more pilots available. The next few days could get interesting.
Today I was finishing off the last site (huffing gas) in our C1. I hear the WH jump noise from the picket I set up and I pull my venture out of the site. Checking the picket I see an Onyx followed by a Loki and an Ishtar. The Onyx bubbles and they sit there. And they wait. I'm sitting about 40km of the hole at this point.
If the rest of the boys were on at the time we might have risked a fight. But I sure wasn't going to send my Stratios in there to die alone. So, They sit there. And I sit there. And we wait. Aboyt 45 minutes pass and they leave back out the static.
But not before sending a Helios in. No probes were ever launched so I suspect the scout is still in here. If they come back around I hope we'll have some more pilots available. The next few days could get interesting.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Hunting the Hunters
Turns out the PI Epithal is not our only house guest. We also have a couple Manticore pilots hanging out in our wormhole as well. They've been in here for 4 days.
A couple days back when running a combat site in my Drake one of them pops up and tries to kill me somehow. Not sure what their plan was as a passive tank Drake can pretty much tank a single stealth bomber all day long. I lock them up and send in my drones and a volley of heavy missiles. They go down to 25% structure before getting out. It's a shame I don't have a point on my site running drake. I may have to fix that in the future.
Anyways, my picket picks them up leaving through the hi-sec static and I thought that was that. But, the next day, I see them briefly on d-scan. I wasn't running sites as I was getting a pile of traffic from the 5 (!) wormhole connections coming into our home. So, I decide to stay cloaked up and see what I could catch.
With a data site available I decide to wait in there and see if one of the scanning ships coming in and out of our system decides to run the site and if that draws out the Manticore.
My plan to use strangers as bait works out. An Imicus and a Magnate run the site and a Manticore decloaks and start firing torps at them. I slowboat to briefly to the Manticore to get inside scram range and decloak my PvP fit Astero. Locked. Scramed. Turn on afterburner, Orbit at 7km. Sic my drones on them. He goes down fast and barely dents my shields. He manages to get his pod away.
So, why are missiles still hitting me? Oh, looks like in my excitement I didn't notice it wasn't just one manticore but two. Get that guy locked up. Scrammed and he joins his friend in a pod. This one did get me into armor but nothing a single cycle of my ancillary repper couldn't solve.
They managed to get their pods back out to high sec before I could track them down.
Sigh.
So, I loot and salvage their wrecks making me about 12 mil richer. Not a terrible payout for 30 seconds of work. I almost felt bad using strangers as bait but I didn't get even a simple thanks for coming to their rescue (albeit for entirely selfish reasons).
Fast forward to later in the night and I briefly see a familiar sight on d-scan. Looks like my Manticore friend is back again.
I guess they want to go to round 3?
A couple days back when running a combat site in my Drake one of them pops up and tries to kill me somehow. Not sure what their plan was as a passive tank Drake can pretty much tank a single stealth bomber all day long. I lock them up and send in my drones and a volley of heavy missiles. They go down to 25% structure before getting out. It's a shame I don't have a point on my site running drake. I may have to fix that in the future.
Anyways, my picket picks them up leaving through the hi-sec static and I thought that was that. But, the next day, I see them briefly on d-scan. I wasn't running sites as I was getting a pile of traffic from the 5 (!) wormhole connections coming into our home. So, I decide to stay cloaked up and see what I could catch.
With a data site available I decide to wait in there and see if one of the scanning ships coming in and out of our system decides to run the site and if that draws out the Manticore.
My plan to use strangers as bait works out. An Imicus and a Magnate run the site and a Manticore decloaks and start firing torps at them. I slowboat to briefly to the Manticore to get inside scram range and decloak my PvP fit Astero. Locked. Scramed. Turn on afterburner, Orbit at 7km. Sic my drones on them. He goes down fast and barely dents my shields. He manages to get his pod away.
So, why are missiles still hitting me? Oh, looks like in my excitement I didn't notice it wasn't just one manticore but two. Get that guy locked up. Scrammed and he joins his friend in a pod. This one did get me into armor but nothing a single cycle of my ancillary repper couldn't solve.
They managed to get their pods back out to high sec before I could track them down.
Sigh.
So, I loot and salvage their wrecks making me about 12 mil richer. Not a terrible payout for 30 seconds of work. I almost felt bad using strangers as bait but I didn't get even a simple thanks for coming to their rescue (albeit for entirely selfish reasons).
Fast forward to later in the night and I briefly see a familiar sight on d-scan. Looks like my Manticore friend is back again.
I guess they want to go to round 3?
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
A House Guest
We've been in our wormhole for 3 days now and I have noticed something interesting. Two of the customs offices are owned by the same 2 man corporation. The picket on our static found the CEO of the same corporation coming through in an Epithal. I quickly added him to my watchlist and found the Epithal briefly on D-scan. Then he logs offs.
Around the same time the next day my watchlist pings me that he came online. I hurried over to one of the customs offices in hopes that I could catch him. I don't think he made a PI run to the outside world today since I just caught him on d-scan just before he logged again.
So, turns out that we have a long term guest (or are we the guests?) camping in our hole doing PI. It should be fun to see if I can catch him over the coming days.
Around the same time the next day my watchlist pings me that he came online. I hurried over to one of the customs offices in hopes that I could catch him. I don't think he made a PI run to the outside world today since I just caught him on d-scan just before he logged again.
So, turns out that we have a long term guest (or are we the guests?) camping in our hole doing PI. It should be fun to see if I can catch him over the coming days.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Blog Banter # 60 - Measuring Success
Blog Banter # 60 - Measuring Success
Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 60th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.
* * * * *
Jakob Anedalle of Jakob's EveChecklist blog asks:
With Phoebe about to land, CSM Minutes now out, and more of CCP Seagull's vision from Eve Vegas it appears CCP has a bold roadmap, is making big changes, and is willing to take a hit in the short term to see it through.
Long term, what do you see as the measurable signs that will tell us that they've succeed?
What do you see as the outcome that we'll see as players?
Is it concurrent player count or something else?
Get writing!
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What is success? That is a tough question for any field much less a recreational game. Do we measure it by fun and enjoyment? Do we measure it by financial success for CCP? Money? Logins? Subscriptions? Or all of the above?
Above all CCP is a business and I think we would be remiss in not looking at the financial side of this first. CCP makes its money from subscriptions and account services. The easy answer is to say their success can be measured by an increase in subscriptions. The cynic in me would say that concurrent logins aren't a concern to CCP as long as the subscriptions keep coming in.
That does ignore the fact that video game developers aren't just business oriented. They are also artists. They care about their creation and want to see people enjoy it. It's a careful balance of getting people to enjoy what you have created and still putting food on the table for their families. So, the basic measure of success is people playing the game and enjoying it. Focus on attracting players and the money will come of its own accord.
So, what brings people to EVE and what keeps them here once they come? In a world with many many MMOs what makes people play EVE instead of WoW, SWTOR, LotRO, Guild Wars 2 or any of the multitudes of other products out there?
The easy answer is because of the sandbox. In EVE you have the freedom to create, explore and destroy however you want. I'd like to go one step further. The biggest draw to EVE are the stories. I don't mean the lore but rather the player driven stories. Sure they're not always written down. They don't have an author or creative team. But they feel very much real because they are created when the dreams and aspirations of real people intersect while flying around in internet spaceships. We regale each other with stories over vent, forums, chats and physical meetups. Stories of what we saw. What we built. What we destroyed. Who we killed and who we got away from. Stories of giant battles and stories of lurking on the edges of space. Politics and Economics.
This is how CCP can succeed. Create more tools. More props. More scenes. Then let the players create their stories. How do we know if they have succeeded? We'll know because we will hear more stories. More buzz. More excitement. More people curious of this crazy game where crazy things happen. Things that just don't happen in any other game.
Welcome to the continuing monthly EVE Blog Banters and our 60th edition! For more details about what the blog banters are visit the Blog Banter page.
* * * * *
Jakob Anedalle of Jakob's EveChecklist blog asks:
With Phoebe about to land, CSM Minutes now out, and more of CCP Seagull's vision from Eve Vegas it appears CCP has a bold roadmap, is making big changes, and is willing to take a hit in the short term to see it through.
Long term, what do you see as the measurable signs that will tell us that they've succeed?
What do you see as the outcome that we'll see as players?
Is it concurrent player count or something else?
Get writing!
====================================================
What is success? That is a tough question for any field much less a recreational game. Do we measure it by fun and enjoyment? Do we measure it by financial success for CCP? Money? Logins? Subscriptions? Or all of the above?
Above all CCP is a business and I think we would be remiss in not looking at the financial side of this first. CCP makes its money from subscriptions and account services. The easy answer is to say their success can be measured by an increase in subscriptions. The cynic in me would say that concurrent logins aren't a concern to CCP as long as the subscriptions keep coming in.
That does ignore the fact that video game developers aren't just business oriented. They are also artists. They care about their creation and want to see people enjoy it. It's a careful balance of getting people to enjoy what you have created and still putting food on the table for their families. So, the basic measure of success is people playing the game and enjoying it. Focus on attracting players and the money will come of its own accord.
So, what brings people to EVE and what keeps them here once they come? In a world with many many MMOs what makes people play EVE instead of WoW, SWTOR, LotRO, Guild Wars 2 or any of the multitudes of other products out there?
The easy answer is because of the sandbox. In EVE you have the freedom to create, explore and destroy however you want. I'd like to go one step further. The biggest draw to EVE are the stories. I don't mean the lore but rather the player driven stories. Sure they're not always written down. They don't have an author or creative team. But they feel very much real because they are created when the dreams and aspirations of real people intersect while flying around in internet spaceships. We regale each other with stories over vent, forums, chats and physical meetups. Stories of what we saw. What we built. What we destroyed. Who we killed and who we got away from. Stories of giant battles and stories of lurking on the edges of space. Politics and Economics.
This is how CCP can succeed. Create more tools. More props. More scenes. Then let the players create their stories. How do we know if they have succeeded? We'll know because we will hear more stories. More buzz. More excitement. More people curious of this crazy game where crazy things happen. Things that just don't happen in any other game.
A New Home
After wandering around Anoikis for a bit over a week I finally found what I had been searching for. An empty C1.
The corp has been planning on doing a camping trip into a wormhole for a while now. We finally got all our ducks in a row and was ready to take that next step. All we needed was a camp site. Well, we found one. It's not the prettiest one but it'll do.
Now to get going and set up a tower. Debating on whether to do it myself or wait until the corpmates get on again. Working with the others would be safer but I'm too excited (impatient) to wait.
The corp has been planning on doing a camping trip into a wormhole for a while now. We finally got all our ducks in a row and was ready to take that next step. All we needed was a camp site. Well, we found one. It's not the prettiest one but it'll do.
Now to get going and set up a tower. Debating on whether to do it myself or wait until the corpmates get on again. Working with the others would be safer but I'm too excited (impatient) to wait.
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