Blog Banter #13: See the Universe

From CrazyKinux's newest Blog Banter

Welcome to the thirteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of this 2nd year of EVE Blog Banters comes to us from Zargyl from A Sebiestor Scholar, who asked the following: On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled “Design your own EVE mission”. My question now would be what kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arks? What would be the story told by it? Feel free to expand upon his questions and put together your very own mission!

One of the things I liked about doing the original Epic Missions arc was the fact that it took you all over the place.

I know that that there are "landmarks" all over the EVE Universe, and I know that I've not gone out of my way to see any of them. There is the EVE Gate, the Black Monolith, a Titan wreck that has been named "Steve". Mynxee talked about a roam she did looking at these plus other sites in a post called A Worthwhile Jaunt.

I don't know how many capsuleers have actually taken the time to go and see some of these sites, but I suspect a large number haven't. Which brings me to what I think would be an interesting mission series.

Mission: L4 - Meeting at the EVE Gate

Your agent informs you that a traitor and enemy agent are going to be meeting at the EVE Gate and he wants you out there to spy on them and get a record of their conversation. You are specifically told not to engage them or get noticed by them. Which means a CovOps ship.

When you warp in you'll see the two ships about 40km away and once you approach to within 20km the conversation will begin. Once they are done talking they warp off. You are free to look around or you can leave and return to your agent.

Once there he'll hand you another in the series and send you off to another landmark somewhere in New Eden.

I don't anticipate these to be difficult in themselves, but there can be some long travel necessitated by this, potentially through low and null sec. And I required a CovOps ship in it. So I made it a Level 4 mission.

As an alternative it could be made into an Epic Mission Arc by trying to hit every landmark. That would probably take a while. Also this would have missions mixed up with combat vs. just spying.

1. CrazyKinux's Musing - Your Mission, should you decide to accept it...
2. Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance - First Blood
3. The Elitist - Guristas Invasion
4. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - ...It's another episode of Design Star: EVE Style...
5. Level Cap -Epic Battles
6. Roc's Ramblings - The Cave of Time
7. Aether - Teach a man to fish...
8. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - Mission: Tangled Webs
9. Adventures in Mission Running - I can haz spaceship?
10. Nuke Thoughts - EVE Blog Banter 13
11. Diary of a Pod Pilot - Distressing The Damsel
12. Guns Ablaze - Dynamic Missions
13. Achernar - Confidential Report
14. More to come...

EVE Blog Banter #12: Is that EVE in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

From CrazyKinux's newest Blog Banter

Welcome to the twelfth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's banter comes to us from none other than CrazyKinux, and I ask the following: First there was the MMO on the PC, and now with the recent announcement of DUST 514, EVE will soon be moving onto consoles. But what about mobile? Allow your imagination to run wild for a second and describe how you would see EVE being ported to mobile devices, whether the iPhone/iPod touch, Blackberrys or Android-based devices. Dream the impossible for us!

I just realized that I am a casual EVE player.

Oh, I would've described myself as much if anyone would've asked. But to tell the truth, I spend far more time involved with EVE than even when I was hardcore raiding in WoW.

If my friends who don't play EVE knew how much time I use fiddling around with the game in one manner or another, they'd probably classify me as a "hardcore" EVE player. But this is definitely not true.

The interesting thing about EVE is that you can spend a lot of time offline messing with stuff. Using EFT to look at ship fits. Either for your current ships or ships you dream about flying. Or use EVEMon or EVEHQ to develop training plans.

There there's the ability to utilize the API to develop applications. The ability to develop applications from downloading your wallet journal to developing more extensive applications to look at inventory, market orders, etc. are available to each and every person in the EVE Universe. Not just to developers that are required to sign agreements with CCP.

Because of the API there already is at least one mobile app. for EVE. Capsuleer for the iPhone. I don't have an iPhone so I've not used Capsuleer, however everything I've read about it has been good.

Do I want the ability to do more of EVE on a mobile platform? Yes! And no. LOL Imagine if I could update my training skill queue, or start and deliver manufacturing jobs? If I could watch the markets and contracts and maybe snap up Ferrogel at the cheapest .1 isk that I could find?

Oh, I don't believe that flying ships (much less combat) would be feasible, mainly due to the screen size restrictions.

But I'd dearly love to do some stationkeeping chores when I'm in a boring meeting. ;)

1. CrazyKinux's Musing - Tying the dots and locking me in!
2. A Merry Life and a Short One - I Don’t Own a Working Phone
3. Yarrbear Tales - EVE on Mobile Devices? Eh.
4. Hands Off, My Loots! - EVE Mobile…Possibility?
5. Achernar - Trapped on Planet Horror
6. Rettic’s Log - The Cronofile – Blog Banter: EVE Mobile
7. A Mule in EVE - EVE Mobility
8. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - EVE Mobile
9. My Life in EVE - 12th Blog Banter
10. My God, it’s Full of Stars! - 12th EVE Blog Banter
11. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - WOW, look at that ‘micro-Dust’
12. Adventures in Mission Running - 12th EVE Blog Banter
13. Ecliptic Rift - EVE Everywhere
14. Roc’s Ramblings - EVE Mobile
15. EVE Monkey - EVE on a Mobile Device?
16. Nashh Kadavr’s EVE Blog - I-pod Capsuleer
17. Escoce – EVE Trade - Dynamic System Security
18. Break Vol - EVE Blog Banter 12
19. Mikeazariah - EVE Mobility
20. Pods and Pills - The 12th EVE Blog Banter: EVE on the MOVE!
21. Eve Monkey - Eve on a mobile Device?
22. Lords of Space - EVE on my Iphone?
23. Many more to come...

Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!

From CrazyKinux's newest Blog Banter:

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

"Last month Ga'len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith "WebMandrill" Nielson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why? I can see this getting quite heated so lets keep it civil eh?"

They give you the ability to have up to three characters per account, but currently you can only train one at a time. Most serious EVE players seem to have multiple accounts so they can train an alt in a different skill set.

Training one character for combat is time consuming. And training another for manufacturing and invention is also very time consuming.

CCP obviously doesn't mind people having and training up alts, but they just about force you to have multiple accounts to do it efficiently.

Keep the number of characters per account at three or even lower it to two, but allow each character to train one skill at a time.

This would allow people to skill up an alt without the need to spend extra money every month to do it.

CCP would still get money from those people who wish to dual box and thus would be required to have multiple accounts. And I'd bet there are a lot of people who would still do this.

I don't believe that this would be unbalancing as there would still be the limitation of one skill at a time per character and players would be able to be a little more productive without having to spend as much money.

List of Participants:

1. Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!
2. EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
3. Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter - It's the Scotch
4. The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
5. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!"
6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
7. Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
8. EVE's Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
9. A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won't You Die?
10. Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
11. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
12. Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
13. One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
14. Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
15. Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
16. A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
17. Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
18. Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
19. Facepalm's Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
20. Memoires of New Eden, You're Fired
21. Kyle Langdon's Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What's a Titan?
22. Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
23. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
24. I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
25. Ripe Lacunae, The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter #9)
26. Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
27. Estel Arador Corp Services, You've got mail
28. Epic Slant, Let Mom and Pop Play: EVE Blog Banter #9
29. Deaf Plasma's EVE Musings, Blog Banter #9 - Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
30. Podded Once Again, Blog Banter #9 - Do we really need to go AFK?
31. Postcards from EVE, 2009.07.02.00.29.06
32. Harbinger Zero, Blog Banter #9 – War Declarations & Sec Status
33. Warp Scrammed, Blog Banter 9 – Never Too Fast
34. Ecaf Ersa (EVE Mag), Can a Tractor Tractor a Can?
35. Thoughts from an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary, EVE Blog Banter #9 - Aggression timers, WTs and Stargates
36. Mike Azariah, I don't put much stock in it...
37. Rettic's Log, Blog Banter: Overview Overload
38. A Sebiestor Scholar, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #9: Slaves
39. Diary of a pod pilot, [OOC] EVE blog banter #9: Because of Falcon
40. Roc's Ramblings, Blog Banter #9 – Taking Things Slow
41. The Gaming-Griefer, EVE Sucks, But I Love It: The Memoir of a Masochist
42. Letrange's EVE Blog, Blog Banter #9: Bye Bye Learning Skills
43. Lyietfinvar, Remove that monopoly
44. Sceadugenga, Blog Banter #9
45. Industrialist with Teeth, EVE Blog Banter #9