EVE Online first few steps.
Feb 26th
It has been a week of finding my feet again in EVE Online and starting from scratch, rediscovery of where I should be going and what I should be doing.
I chose to go for a Amarr character which I have never played before, in my previous plays with EVE Online I have played mostly Gallente or Calardri. So a new fresh start with a new fresh race seemed a logical thing for me to do.
The largest of the empires in the world of EVE, Amarr spans 40% of the inhabited solar systems. The Amarr Emperor is the head of a ritualistic, authoritarian imperial state, and below him are the Five Heirs, the heads of the five royal families from which a new Emperor is chosen. The Emperor’s authority is unquestioned and absolute, but the archaic and bureaucratic system of government makes it difficult for him to exert his rule unless directly in person. Otherwise, the Five Heirs rule in his name, dividing the huge empire between them.
Downloaded the required and essential tools that I need to play which is basically something called EVEMon, I suggest that if you are new to the game then you need to go and get EVEMon, it essentially allows you to monitor your character whilst not logged into the game but the most useful tool is it allows you to create a training plan based on a skill or ship you want. So you select your dream ship and the app will show you all the skills you need and in the order you need to learn them to reach your goal.
I am currently part of a default Corporation called Hedion University I am looking to join another Corp but in no rush as I am still not sure of the direction I want to go with this Char.
So far I have done all the tutorial agent missions which I recommend to anyone that they should do as you get some nice new items and new ships, but it will also give you an idea of the structure missions take and gets you used to the controls and environment.
Once I completed these I moved onto the Career Agent missions, which I am currently working through the business ones. If you ever need to find your career agents then just press F12 and they will be on this help page. Again these help you just to get familiar with the game. I have also been doing my first Epic Arc mission The Blood-Stained Stars this is a good missions as it feels it starts to get hard pretty quickly so it makes you adjust to the ways you need to load out your ship.
Last night I purchased my Destroyer which is a Amarr Coercer, I am currently looking at finding a good loadout for this ship that gives me good firepower for missions but also good for Salvaging which is the path I am currently taking. In the past when I have played EVE Online I go for mining and spend hours mining, which is good for making money and good for training skills and getting larger ships but boring. So far I have managed to do no mining at all other than a small 10 minute effort for a mission.
So in short here is where I am and here is what I suggest you do if you are new to EVE Online:
- Play the Tutorial Missions
- Download EVEMon
- Do the Career Missions from the Career Agent (F12 to find them)
- Start your first Epic Arc.
More to come…
EVE Online Screens from tonight…
Feb 24th
Thought I would just post some screens from tonights play, whilst I was uploading them however someone decided to blow me up as I was travelling through Low-Sec space on auto-pilot. So noob mistake number one, never autopilot through low sec space whilst uploading images to a website.
Back to EVE Online, again…
Feb 24th
I have been in and out of this game a lot. Something keeps drawing me back to the Universe of EVE Online and I think I may know what it is.
I am a big fan of Elite and a very big fan of Frontier: Elite II and Frontier First Encounters, probably the most hours of life investment have gone into those three games alone. I believe EVE Online captures that magic that for example I felt when playing Frontier: Elite II.
It is that feeling of freedom, that feeling of making ends meet and trading my wares.
I have decided that I am going to blog about a Newbies Journey into EVE Online and beyond. Yes I still call myself a Noob when it comes to EVE, I have been playing EVE on and off since it was released back in May of 2003, yes it really has been out since 2003!! Even though I have played this game for a long time, I have never really got into the detail of this game as normally something else or life will tend to get in the way.
So over the next 6 months when I play the game I am going to share my experiences here on this blog. Hopefully new players can read this and learn from my mistakes and I would also hope that seasoned players may stumble upon this blog and share their wisdom with me.
I hope to take lots of screenshots and share my experience with you all.
Friday Funnies…
Feb 12th
I thought it would be good to post some fun on a Friday, so here is a video on YouTube with some painful funnies.. oh and a load of animals humping things.
Enjoy.
Lets get Digital…
Feb 8th
I have accumulated many DVD’s, Blu-rays, HD-DVD’s (yes I have a few of those) and Computer Games over time, and they are now just clutter in the lounge and something for the kids to try and grab and knock over.. I think I probably have around 600 cases sitting on shelves all containing movies, games and such. I think it is about time we all got a little more digital in our homes and download content via the internet and store on HDD.
Microsoft are trying in on the Xbox 360, Apple have been doing it with music and movies for a while now, PS3 has started doing it with games and movies as well, Direct2Drive has a pretty good library of PC games for download as does Steam and to be fair Direct2Drive and Steam at least have recent titles but it is deemed to be easier to distribute PC games, but I feel they are not pushing this enough. The games you can download for example on a console are old and have been around for a while. I would like to see new games available on day one of release in a digital format on a console. I would also like to see a price reduction in digital distribution as currently there is no real incentive to use the digital distribution channels unless you just physically can’t be arsed to either get to a shop or order online for delivery.
We don’t need boxes, we rarely read manuals (at least I don’t) so by distributing in a digital format surely there is a cost saving to the producers of the titles. There is no jewel case, there is no printed inlay, there is no printed manual and there is no disk. These must cost in terms of production and therefore there must be a saving when these are not produced. I can also pick up a movie from an online store or shop with all the above for less than I can by downloading it through iTunes, Zune Movies or PS3 Store. So why would I pay more for less, and at the convenience of saving the distributer some money? This does not makes sense to me.
The games available on the Xbox Live Marketplace for example are old titles and all priced at £19.99. WHY? GTA IV is £19.99 at the time of posting this blog I can buy this from Game or EBay for as little as a half of what Microsoft are going to charge me through the Games on Demand.
Digital Distribution of Movies and Games saves money for the producers of these titles, if they were brave enough to actually put some weight behind the distribution of titles on digital channels and pass on the saving to us the consumer then I believe more people would adopt this method of obtaining their media. I for one would happily download my games as this would prevent my shelves from the inevitable collapse they are due to have.
Internet speeds are becoming quicker and quicker allowing more and more data to be transferred in a shorter period of time, I believe the infrastructure is ready for this move to a digital download society, just not sure the masses are ready and I am not sure the greedy distributors are ready yet either.
My suggestion would be try it, why not release a “AAA” title on Digital Download across all platforms a week before the box hits the shelves. Find out how much appetite there is. But offer some value to the consumer, by making it cheaper for example.
I would buy all my movies and games online if I could, would you?
MP’s Expenses…
Feb 5th
Well once again the news is filled with the 2009 MP’s expenses scandal. I for one am waiting to see some real punishments put into effect for these obvious crimes that a lot of our trusted MP’s have committed.
I have no sympathy for them, they seem to all live a life that many of us can only dream of. I know a lot of people who have to commute distances to get to their place of work, I know that none of these people get a second house to do this, or have their first house paid for either. I know that when they go to lunch they have to pay for it themselves.
We pay our taxes to see this country thrive, and yet we are the last major economy to come out of this depression, we are borrowing money like it was going out of fashion, yet these people who run the country are living for free on us. Sick!
It would seem to me that to be an MP is like being part of a club, that has real benefits. Not only do they get paid a pretty good salary but essentially their cost of living is also given to them in expenses. Pretty disgusting really if you ask me.
Will the 4 who have now had criminal proceedings bought against them actually be punished. Probably, Maybe I assume these 4 are going to the Scapegoats to focus of everyone else and also try to appease the British public. I don’t see this as being anything more than simply a publicity stunt to try take some of the heat away.
I think the fact that 1.1 Million has been asked to be repaid shows that the fraud (which is essentially what it is) was done on a massive scale by many a MP. If they have been asked to pay 1.1 Million back then surely those who have been asked to repay something have all abused the system and therefore all guilty of the same offenses the chosen Scapegoat 4 have been pulled up on.
We have a choice soon when we vote, I am two schools of thought here. Firstly any MP that has fiddled his or her expenses should not receive any votes from anyone. Second I was wondering what would happen if in the general election, no one and I mean NO ONE voted at all. We just all stayed at home.
All those who have taken from our tax should be sacked from their posts, and also bought before the public in a court on charges of theft and fraud and I really do mean all of them.
Always makes me smile.
Feb 3rd
I know this has been around for a very long time, however some days you just need to see this as for me it always puts a smile on my face.
Also it is my wedding anniversary today and this fits perfectly:
Star Trek Online First Impressions Pt.2
Jan 28th
The Open Beta for Star Trek Online has now finished and we are only 3 day away from the head start that is available for people how have pre-ordered the game.
My initial experience was one of frustration and revelation. I liked what I saw however due to connection errors, piss poor graphic driver support and server downtime I was left wondering what the game really involved.
Well after my initial teething issues and a heft 900mb patch from Cryptic, the game suddenly came alive for me. Finally I was able to log in, finally the graphic driver issues were gone and I could really have a go at the opening part of this game.
The player creation I found to be pretty good, the detail in which you can alter your Star Trek character is pretty good and I found myself playing and tweaking with this for a good half hour before I finally decided to play the game proper.
The opening missions are pretty standard in terms of getting you familiar with the controls and guiding you to your destiny of getting your own ship.
Once you have your own ship you are sent to the SOL system, for those who don’t know that would be our galaxy. You are stationed around Earth Base. This is the player hub that allows you to get to walk around talk to people, buy items, sell items, the usual really. Picking up quests from people is pretty simple too, just go to someone who has a “Q” over the head and hey presto they will have something for you to do.
Skipping forwards and beyond the initial quests, I managed to experience space travel which I have to say the mechanics take some getting used to as sector space is like a big map that you move your ship over to reach the next galaxy. This allows for player encounters, trading ships and random missions to interrupt your journey. If you look at the Star Trek Online forums you will see a lot of fans hate this sector space approach and wanted more of a Bridge View travel and warp system. I am sitting on the fence at the moment as what is there works and serves a purpose.
The missions structure seems to be pretty much the same and I am hoping in full release to see some more variation from the what I have seen. You essentially have a space battle, then beam to a ship or a planets surface, kill some people then beam back to you ship and warp out of the galaxy. Turning in quests is pretty easy seeing as we are in the age of Star Trek we can just simply hail Starfleet and talk to the quest giver and hand it in. Saves having to fly back to the person in question and hand it in that way.
So I know this is brief as was my time in the Beta due to the hassle of getting in. However I can say right at the end it seemed to all slot into place. Now I need to play the game for real, I want to boldly go and discover new worlds and races. I hope Cryptic keep adding to this game, refining it and I hope for a real experience soon. Will let you know how get on after my first week of play, I will be in the Head Start which starts on Friday of this week.
Star Trek Online First Impressions pt. 1
Jan 22nd
So finally Star Trek Online has gone into open Beta, followed very shortly with a Live release date of the 2nd February 2010 in the US and apparently 5th February 2010 for the EU release. The Open Beta began on 12th January 2010 and is due to finish on 26th January 2010.
Those that have pre-ordered the game will be able to get a head start on the 29th January 2010, giving them a few days before general release to be able to mission up and get out of the starting zones before they are inundated with people.
I have only managed to play the game for a total of 4 hours, 2 hours on Wednesday night this week and 2 hours on Thursday night this week. Wednesday night was absolutely painful and very nearly put me off the game before I had even really got into it.
The basics are pretty easy to get to grips with and without spoiling it for those who have not played the game yet but are going to, lets just say the mission structure is pretty much the same missions structure than the original TV series had. So you on a ship, you have to shoot some other ships, beam down to a planet or onto another ship shoot some enemies, save the day and beam back to your own ship then shoot some more enemies from your ship. Space flight is pretty simple to get to grips with and I found that very laggy on the Wednesday night, when I beamed down to the first missions planet surface this is where it all went very wrong for me. With a mixture of Lag and just incredible jittering graphics, I actually had to stop playing us the game became unplayable.
After scouring the internet for people with the same issues it turned out not to be an issue as such with STO but an issue with the latest Nvidia driver set. So be warned if you are like me and update your drivers regularly then you will probably have the same problems. The fix is simple enough and that is download the 190.26 version of the Nvidia drivers or I believe they are soon to release a new set of drivers that fixes the issue. Either way revert or wait for a new set.
So on Thursday night I finally got the old Nvidia drivers installed and began to play the game again. The lag and the pausing screen has now gone and the game has started to actually look good.
I finished the starter quests and was handed the captaincy of my ship, picked up a few missions and off I set to boldly go where a lot of people playing the beta had already gone before me.
First main mission was to find the USS Azure and aid in its rescue, which involved fighting about 4 ships to get them out of the USS Azures way, quitting the mission because an enemy vessel was stuck in an asteroid therefore I could to proceed to the next part of the mission. So starting the mission again, killing all the ships this time, then guess what? I had to beam aboard the USS Azure and rescue the crew and then beam off the ship and the game kicked me off the server because it was too busy.
From what I saw I liked, I appreciate this is a BETA and expect things like this to happen, but I am scared that the game is about a week and a bit away from release, and it does still seem full of bugs.
The one bug I did find which put a smile on my face, was that when I entered a space port my player character stayed as a ship for a while before turning into my avatar character, amusing as this was the next is even better on leaving a space port and going back into space my character stayed as a man and basically just fell through space.
So that is it so far… more to come when I get some more time and of course I am able to get passed the message telling me the server is full.
Google Wave, or was it a small splash
Jan 19th
I have used Google Wave for a few months now, and the all the hype that Google managed to create around their real-tile collaboration tool was more of a little splash for me than a big crashing Wave.
Ok it is still in development phase but that did stop the thousands of people getting on board to ride the Google Wave. Now this is not the first time that Google have spat out a not quite complete package and yet again it would seem that the PR campaign which essentially this was, again has actually paid off. They had a lot of press coverage on Google Wave and a lot of buzz was generated within the industry. The question I want to pose is this:
Is Google Wave actually any good?
From what I can tell this is just a great way of getting everyone to signup for a Gmail account, those of us that do not have one of course will be unable to access Google Wave.
The idea of a real-time collaboration tool actually appeals to me however as yet I think the masses are probably not ready to have all their eggs in one big Google basket.
I am sure with development Google will once again be onto a winner with this though, whether it serves as conduit for the even more advertisement remains to be seen. Or whether it is a tool to try and get masses to sign up for Gmail and other Google services who knows?
My guess would see Google Wave change a lot over 2010 and maybe something amazing will be born, but until then it isn’t much fun and with 30 invites still needing to be sent to people who quiet frankly could not care about Google Wave, then something really special needs to happen with it.
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