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Monday, May 3, 2010

I quit!

I unsubscribed my 2 accounts.

The game is just too slow for me. I simply don't have the patience for EVE. I'm the type of person that wants action straight up.. not have to travel through a number of systems to find something to kill. The solo aspects of EVE just aren't for me. I find mining, missioning, exploring, scanning WH's.. pretty much all of that type of solo thing... boring and slow!

PVP is where it's at.. and I simply don't have the time or the patience to learn the thousands of things I must learn to be competitive at it. No other MMO I have played has needed this type of commitment. I guess that's why EVE stands on it's own.

So long all.
o7

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

n00b trading

G'day!

I don't think there is terribly much interest in the "n00b blog" market. We n00bs have very little to say that's interesting really. Sure, other players starting out may find it helpful but most n00bs wouldn't even know about the large blog roll EVE has. So that leaves the experienced players and you guys don't want to read ramblings of a n00b right?

Anyway, an update because it's been a while.

I went through this stage recently of pissing EVE off my system. It got really boring for a while, even in this great corp. People are always doing shit in my corp. There's always a fairly active PvP contingent and on a few occasions I snuck into TS and listened to the goings on. It sounds pretty intense and most of all, fun.
I read the kill posts on the forum and some of the epic stories that go along with them are inspiring.

I wish I could join them but alas, you need ISK.

Inspired by someone in my corp, I decided to give trading a shot. I've tried mining, missions, salvaging and manufacturing to make some ISK but I got bored pretty quickly. Out of those few examples, missions and salvaging is the most bearable. I wanted something that could make money while I'm not playing and trading has that potential.

So i began reading about trading. Man, is this confusing. There's quite a few types of trading and different ways to go about it. There are elements I do understand like buy low, sell high. That's probably the most well known rule. I understand hauling can play a large part of trading too as you buy low in one system, haul it over to another system and sell it for a high price. The difference is your profit. That's fine.

I want to get to a point where I'm hauling once a week. Just to keep my PVP habit alive. A habit I don't have yet mind you. The act of hauling isn't bad actually. Dare I say I like it. I put this down to only having to make 9 jumps though, as I am only trading between Jita and Amarr hubs. Yes I know, that's not ideal at all and I have been told. :) You see, my current plan of attack is to buy low sell orders and then sell them to high buy orders. Pretty standard stuff and not very imaginative. The problem is there isn't a hell of a lot of ISK to to be made this way unless you have a substantial amount of ISK to use. I don't have enough, clearly, as any trading I'm doing is only making me 100-200k profits. Sometimes I have to make 15 jumps to get that. Highly ineffective.

I have to establish a good trade route. This is where I'm fucked. I have no idea where to begin doing this save for someone telling me to find a mission hub and trade drones and ammo there. That's fine and all but there's fucking heaps of mission hubs! I was trying to work out decent L4 missions hubs close to Amarr with the agent finder and Ombeys 2DMaps. I've found 4 possible systems so far that may be ok, but I really don't know what I'm looking for. They have L4 missions there and that's about it. Save from having characters littered all over the place checking prices, I have NFI how I can check prices around the place and make informed decisions. There is something I'm not grasping, and it's driving me nuts. It is also delaying my urge to PVP.

I have 2 accounts now, with a trader on each account. One is flying a bestower and the other should be flying a mammoth in a few hours. The potential is there to make ISK, just need to crack the code in my brain that is blocking what appears to be bloody obvious to everyone else regarding trading.

In saying all of that though, I'm not a numbers guy. I prefer to design shit rather than program. However, I am getting a certain enjoyment in trying to work out profits and read the market, even if I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I think It's because I feel smarter now haha.

Peace
Sile

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Corp supports n00b.

G'day all,

Just following up from my last post since I didn't want it to be a 4 page epic..

Logging into EVE tonight, I was ready to give it away. I was trying to think what other MMO's can I play? I've done World of Warcraft -sick of that. Maybe I can give Age of Conan another go since it's shaky launch (which promised to be something it wasn't yet). I looked at the clock, 8:30pm. Meh, by the time I install it, activate my account, download all the patches I'll have to go to bed for work in the morning. Can't be fucked.

I dicked around in EVE. (wow, that saying sounds so wrong, but I kind of like it.) not really sure what to do. I made the 38 jumps back with my Merlin, and sped past a few WT's that were flashing "IM RED AND WILL EAT YOUR BABIES FACES OFF". I got podded for the first time last night doing the same thing. I learned to be a bit more careful. Anyway, I mentioned doing this massive jump marathon to get a Merlin and people thought that was just crazy. So I was immediately showered with ISK and a ship.

I was trying to save up for a Caracal myself. I'd rather do the hard yards first, then be given gifts so I can appreciate them more. Remember back to your first car? Now, if that was bought for you, piss off. If you saved your arse off for it and bought it yourself, how much did you fucken care about that bastard!? Man, I was polishing my first car every weekend. Vacuuming it, washing it, driving it around showing it off. *whistles*. I appreciated the hell out of that car purely because I saved for it. Well, that's what I wanted to do in EVE.. but alas, EVE is a lot different to life. I was mailed ISK that I couldn't refuse, and the CEO private convo'd me and told me to ask for help, ISK or anything else I needed, and basically, I'm a mad prick for jumping 80 times for a Merlin.

The flood of support was awesome. I was about the PM the CEO and ask him to remove me from ANZA because I really didn't think I could go on in this game. It's slow, boring and totally overwhelming. He said to me to give EVE more time and with the ISK and stuff everyone has given me, that should make it easier.

How good is that? I'm not one to take things from people as I hate the stigma of a "beggar". I like to earn my keep, show respect for things and in time, I believe that pays for itself. I had to face the facts. This is a GAME. Get used to it. Accept  the help, accept the freebies and one day I can do unto others as I have had done to me. Did that last part make sense? Trying to be too smart for my own good.

As a corpie said.. It's a team effort. I'll get helped along to be a strong player and, in turn, I can then use my strength for the good of the corp. What goes around comes around and all that. Makes sense. That is all.

-Sile

My first OP, fail.

G'day all,

I was starting to hit an invisible brick wall lately. I'd log into EVE and not really know what to do. Many corpies are out killing WT's (war targets) and I'm doing L1 missions for isk. Some of those missions are hard that involve Angel Cartel and Blood Raiders (or something similar). I suspect it's because I'm using my dodgy Comorant destroyer and it probably isn't fitted out well at all.

I've got my alt character just learning skills atm. I haven't subscribed the account just yet. To be honest, I'm not sure if i'll be playing EVE much longer. I've been having thoughts doc, bad thoughts. I've been wanting to kill EVE, kill EVE and throw it in the boot of my car and drive it off a cliff. At least that would be an adrenaline rush, something that is missing for me with this game. These are tears of boredom, and I'm not even mining!

There was an op ( "operation" -corpies meet up and do something. ie: escort a ship, roam for enemies etc) last night and I thought it'd be cool to join a fleet for the first time. So I jump into TS, get an invite to the fleet and sit at the meet up spot in my Ibis. An Ibis is a small, cheap ship that you can't do much with. It's Caldari specific and we get them if you dock at a station in your pod. Basically, it's a free n00b ship.

So anyway, I'm there in my Ibis, which I was told to take by a corpie. We are told to call out our squad number in chat and post what ship you have. Firstly, I dunno how to tell what squad I'm in. So I wait for several people to call out their squad and I said I didn't know. The fleet comander says on teamspeak "Don't worry, I know where you are. Just type your ship up in chat". So I typed out Ibis. I'm sure everyone was saying.. "LOL WTF!!?" but only one bloke actually said "Are you serious?".. Well, I'm only doing what I was told right?

So the fleet commander says I can go and get something bigger. My Merlin is 38 jumps away and my only other ship is my Comorant destroyer which I'm using for missions. I can't afford to lose it as I have fuck all ISK, so I'm kinda in limbo here. Meanwhile, there's some English blokes talking on teamspeak, which I'm having a really hard time understanding one of their accents and the terminology being used. In fear of missing out on hearing an instruction, I'm listening intently to everything and kind of stalling. Another guy is trying to get me to dock and trade with him so he can give me a Caracal cruiser (which I was trying to save up for) and of course, that freaked me out because I didn't want to lose it, or owe anyone anything.

We were also asked, "does everyone have a bookmark?" .. *coughs* .. a what? o.0

It all came to a head for me. It's hard to explain, but there was far too much going on for my EVE ignorant mind to comprehend. I declined the trade, un-docked and asked in fleet chat to leave the op. I had thoughts of just leaving, but I thought I'd do the right thing. So with the go ahead, I left. (I would have left anyway, even If they said No.. lol who am I kidding?)

My first op was a failure.Not only that, but I felt like a dickhead. Of course, I couldn't be persuaded to join back up.. /sigh.. the shame of it all. It was just too much all at once. I need to swim out to the deep end with this game, not be dropped into the ocean, naked, with my legs dipped in pigs blood.

-Sile

Thursday, March 25, 2010

N00B UI colour tip!

G'day,

After staring at a computer screen all at work my eyes must become a bit tired. That, or I just have trouble reading the EVE UI. Man it would be nice to change fonts in EVE.

Anyway, white text on black is just damn hard to read for me. The white all just tends to blur together and I find myself getting closer to the screen.

I found some colour options in the main menu under the 'General Tab'. Have a play around, you can change the colours of the background which makes the contrast a bit softer. Much easier to read things.

Also, another little n00b tip: You can increase the font in the chat windows my clicking the small letter "A" in the top left of your chat windows. There's 2 actually, one increases and the other decreases the font size. This was especially helpful. One font size bigger is great.

I've sent a buddy invite to my alt for some free playing time. I basically want to run 2 instances of EVE so I can mine on the alt and whatever else on the main. Unfortunately, I ran into problems. Apparently you can't run 2 demo's on the one computer, or for that matter, 2 paid copies. I chucked a copy on my laptop, and though it meets the minimum requirements, EVE doesn't run. Bleh..

However, there is a solution! EVE - Multiple Clients It's a link to a wiki explaining how to do it. I've also read that you cannot have 1 paid & 1 trial running so they both have to be paid copies. I'm running EVE through Steam, so hopefully I can get something working using both sources of info.

Well, that's about it. No in-game updates per se.

-Sile

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Home sweet home -again.

G'day,

After 38 jumps, I finally made it to ANZA HQ. The flight was good. I had half a dozen windows open, configuring bits and pieces whilst warping, and the time went pretty quick. Not really knowing the war status of ANZA yet, I made to I checked each system for "red flashies" and also quickly looked in local. Anyway, the move went well.

I left a Merlin at another station which I'll have to go back for, but I'm not in a rush at the moment. At first, I wasn't going to bother. I checked the price of the Merlin on the market and it was something ridiculously cheap. When I reached my destination 38 jumps later, I jumped onto the market to buy one and found quite a considerable difference. It appears I have more to learn about the market and the different systems.

ANZA has been great. It feels far more active that E-Uni. Tonight, someone got podded in 0.8sec and apparently that's not normal. The talk of sending ships out to pop caps in arses got the blood boiling and I got a taste of the excitement in the corp. I bet It's freakin' electric when a real fight is about to happen!

I have already had offers to run L4 missions and salvage the wrecks. I had a bit of mucking around to do tonight and settling into the corp, so I couldn't accept, but it's great knowing that opportunities like that exist for a n00b 1 day into a new corp. I think I'd still be docked in E-Uni, spinning my ship around.

I hadn't learned the Infomorph skill yet, required for Jump Clones, as It is a fair whack of ISK for me. I only had 1.9million ISK and the skill was worth 900k. E-Uni is great like that. Anything up to 1 mil ISK is given to you. Now, I have to fund these things myself, and that requires a job. I'm ok with this though. It's good to be forced into looking after yourself and also, ANZA is prepared to help out by running missions with me and I think they even have a mining group going. So I'm not totally alone. I'm learning the first few levels of Infomorph now and hopefully after that, I'll be able to join in on OP's.

Have a good one,
-Sile

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

My apology to ANZA

G'day,

I figured I'd create a new post for this. Probably not really funny or relevant to anyone else but me, so it's more for my own amusement.

When I started my 14-day trial, I had one corporation in mind that I wanted to join. That was ANZAC Alliance. Reason being was that they were Australian! So I jumped into their recruit channel as soon as I figured out how to do it. After reading through the usual "guff", I learned that you couldn't apply whilst on trial accounts. Fuck.

"Ok", I thought. "I'll bloody well sit in the channel until my trial is up, then I'll make a decision whether or not to subscribe".

They were recruiting at this stage and I still had about 13 days to go. Yipee. So I asked if recruitment was still going to be open in a couple weeks, thinking I'd just double check because knowing my luck, it will close just as I want to apply. The general consensus was yes, they would be. Excellent. Muhaha... Muhahahahaha... Muhahahahahaha... (*raises pinky finger to mouth Dr. Evil style*)

Sorry.

At about day 10, something happened with the ANZAC recruitment channel. It was changed to another name and I was told to move to the new channel. I didn't even know how, and felt like a right dickhead. Some kind chap helped me out though. Then I was told that ANZAC was trying to be known as ANZA. I do admit, I LOL'd in real life. In a world of abbreviations, I really didn't think 1 letter was a huge deal. Plus ANZAC is synonomous with our Aussies diggers (soldiers) and I just really couldn't understand why but, I accepted it.

Then my original fears were realised. "Recruitment: CLOSED". "What the fuck!?". "Those dirty rat bas..." (* a tirade of expletives can be heard trailing off into the distance*).

It was sheer disappointment. I didn't want anything more than to be in ANZA. To me, it was the only large Aussie corp worthy of being in. The corps name just oozed 'home'. Shattered, I went back to some forums where I tend to hang out and had my say (re: whinge). I knew a couple members that were on the forums were actually in ANZA, so i expected them to say a few things about it. I didn't expect other people to stick up for ANZA as well! Although I thought my point was valid, I did begin to see that I jumped in too hastily to condemn ANZA. Of course, it is the CEO's choice to open or close recruiting, no matter what other people tell you.

That's when I applied to E-Uni, knowing they took any decent honest n00b in.

So now, I'm eating humble pie it seems. Not only was I accepted into ANZA very quickly, but everyone was nice and welcoming. MmmMmm... humble pie tastes bitter sweet.

So to ANZA, I am sorry. Now let's shake hands and drink some beer!

-Sile.