Cerebral

CCP Manifest rebuilt a 2014 EVE Fanfest talk (apparently in his own time) into one of the more cerebral EVE YouTube videos I’ve watched. It talks about how Players talk about New Eden. (Yes – that is what I meant to say.)

The 40 minute clip does a reasonable job of defining what EVE is (yes, it takes 40 minutes), and I expect most EVE players will relate to its contents. Having said that, I also suspect it would probably confuse non-EVE players.

You can view it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NcRBgQm1J4

There was a great number of blog post topics sprinkled throughout – most of which I will not find the time to explore.

There was a remark that it was a good environment to test you assumptions in the study of humanity.

As I have mentioned before, one of the things I find interesting about playing EVE – even from my quiet Hermit ways corner, is being able to observe how people behave in and around the game. I have an amateur psychology theory that Political Correctness is a relatively thin veneer on society, held in place by peer pressure. I had long thought I would get to see how that played out in EVE – where participants are only loosely shackled by society’s expectations, have a level of anonymity, and operate in a hide or kill or be killed environment. After years of watching I came to the conclusion that EVE was not a good study of humanity. Quite frankly, overall people were too nice. People don’t need an artificial anonymous game world to feel free to voice their true opinions, show their true colors – they just use Facebook.

There was another remark that playing EVE is like a game of Russian Roulette – where you try to maximise the number of empty chambers in a gun, but at some point you are going to undock and die.

There was a quote that could have been directed at this blog – “Trapped in a myth that anyone can truly win by flying solo.” While two of the best known players in EVE effectively fly solo (Chribba & Gevlon), I suspect few would think you can have any true power in EVE by just playing the game by yourself. It is probably a myth that people would think that way. I just think it is better to play Solo than to not play at all.

There were plenty of other notes I’ve made, but I’ll finish on this little gem – “playing EVE is real science fiction.”

If you are in the right mood, it is definitely an interesting and worthwhile watch.

Mosaic Sov

Reading through the patch notes for Mosaic

http://community.eveonline.com/news/patch-notes/patch-notes-for-mosaic

Noticed this:

. The rate at which mining accumulates Sovereignty Industrial Index points has been greatly increased
. The rate at which killing NPCs accumulates Sovereignty Military Index points has been greatly increased

That might change the calculations on how many carebears you need in your space when Fozziesov arrives.

Edit… and THIS

. New Map: Probing – added double click on probe result to focus map.

Bend over

EVE News24 published a two part story on the Brave Alliance Coup attempt and their expulsion from Catch.

http://evenews24.com/2015/04/19/a-brave-story-part-i-kingdom-come/
http://evenews24.com/2015/04/22/a-brave-story-the-king-the-broker-and-the-one-good-man-2/

I don’t know if it is 10% or 90% accurate, but it is a great read. How many other games out there are able to generate stories like that?

I’ve seen a number of BRAVE members be disparaging about their capitulation to PL in Catch. I am not sure why they were feeling like that.

BRAVE is an Alliance filled with low SP, low wealth new players. PL is made up of high SP, wealthy and accomplished old players. PL comprehensively outweighed and outclassed BRAVE.

PL did not however just steamroll BRAVE, they did something worse. They in effect gave them an ultimatum. “Make yourselves available for a complete rodgering any time we feel like it. Don’t just bend over – make sure you make each romantic encounter titillating for us. Otherwise we kick you out of Catch.”

BRAVE consented – I presume in the name of content for their pilots, but that sort of relationship is simply not healthy.

I was surprised that PL kept at them for long. It no longer seemed like it was “just for fun”, and had crossed over into either purposeful or sadistic. I think it was impressive that BRAVE put up with it for so long. Many other Alliances would have collapsed well before.

Respect goes to BRAVE, although not to their opponents.

Unusual

I did something unusual today – I played EVE for more than half the day. Well – played is a subjective description. I spent a great deal of time looking at my BPO library.

I am coming up to the last month or so of the project to ensure all my BPO are researched appropriately. I can’t remember when I started this process, before Christmas I guess. Today I cross checked what BPO I had against what you can purchase on the market. I found I am missing 336, give or take.

I don’t want more than half of those – such as the Titans, Outpost Components, and the Advanced Capital Ship Components used in T2 Freighters. There are however bits and bobs I will grab, the largest group being the Capital Rig BPO. I also missed a few of the newer BPO, such as some of the Mobile deployable structures and the Scan arrays.

The effort has triggered more in game work – the selling off of the excess BPO I don’t need, primarily duplicates, and a lot of time spent undocked flying around collecting the missing BPO that I want to add to my collection.

Who are you, who am I?

The most recent addition to the EVE blogs I follow is Talvorian Dex at http://targetcaller.blogspot.com.

A couple weeks ago he posted an interesting article about what defines a player’s “main” character.

http://targetcaller.blogspot.com/2015/03/who-is-your-main.html

Sugar Kyle more recently posted a reply on her blog which I also found interesting.

http://www.lowseclifestyle.com/2015/03/nuances-of-self.html

While I will admit I do get kind of chuffed in a childlike manner when a space famous blogger mentions me, I was actually prompted to post because I thought there was a short and clear answer.

Who is your main character?

If from this point on you could only play one single character in EVE for evermore, which one would you pick? That is your main.

In my case I would pick my first and oldest character, the one with the most SP, the Jack of all trades which can do almost anything I want to set my mind to in game.

Done and dusted, as easy as that. But then I made the mistake of thinking about it more.

I don’t post under or refer to the name of my main character. Most of you don’t know me by that name. It is easy however to work out – you know I like the term Hermit, have an Alliance for just me and my alts, and that I’ve been playing for more than 8 years. Spend 60 seconds and you will have that name.

But that is all you will have –a name. You can work out my kill stats, where I am based out of, and what sort of corporation and alliances I have been a part of. But you pretty much know all that already and more. You know my motivations and how I play because I rabbit on about them here all the time.

I assume most of you think of me as EVEHermit – even though that was an unskilled ALT I had to trash when consolidating accounts.

I chat to a number of people in game who use different alts. I don’t think of them any differently just because the portrait has changed.

I feel foolish to say it, but in effect your main is you.