Shiny New EvE

  I am loving all the little tweaks and fixes being pushed into EvE in Crucible and the subsequent patches, it's really making me enjoy some aspects of the game again.  There are still things that need some love and I know CCP will have to get back into adding new content and features soon but here's hoping the fixes keep coming.

  I'm also looking forward to the completion of the re-skinning project since that leads to a lot of promise for the millions of hello kitty thorax's we can expect to see if they allow custom skins.  But for now I'm enjoying how much better many of the ships are looking.

Getting Whooped

  So, I've been in this game a long time and I'm proud to say I've made a lot of friends.  There are some of these friends that I've alienated in the course of this stupid game and given the fact that you can't please everyone, and there are also those very few friends who have accepted me as I am and enjoyed the ride (yep, it got dirty fast!).  One of the issues that has always divided myself and many of my friends in this game is their view on many of the fights I take part in...  They are of the firm opinion that any fleet that is made of more than 10 people is a blob and that 0.0 alliances somehow cannot PvP by their very nature.  They always fail to take into account the strategic significance of 0.0 fights and the fact that sometimes it's better to discourage attacks with overwhelming force than to encourage good fights in a space where you are trying to make a home.  Many people seem to forget that as a sandbox game, there are a lot of EvE players out there striving for more than just the next great 1V1 fight.  But I hope they never forget that in the crucible that is 0.0, true combat happens daily and I try to prove it whenever I can.

  Of all the things I've done in EvE I've never really scrapped a fleet, but I did that tonight in epic style.  I'm man enough admit that as an FC I got whooped once tonight and had some success later on.  To be fair, the bomber fleet was supposed to be engaging a T1 cruiser fleet but the intel was  bit spotty:

http://www.fatal-ascension.com/killboard/?a=kill_related&kll_id=62102
http://www.fatal-ascension.com/killboard/?a=kill_related&kll_id=62116
http://www.fatal-ascension.com/killboard/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=62115



A corpie's vision of one of the good fights we had this week

New PC

With EvE getting prettier and my old graphics cards melting like butter I decided to upgrade to a brand new PC.  Wife thinks I went overboard, I think I need a bigger monitor :)

So Pretty

  So, as it's all over the blogosphere; Crucible has landed and it includes some sexy new visuals.  For the bitter vets it also includes an array of changes that are both small and huge at the same time.  Little things like fixing the font and making destroyers actually work are going a long way in repairing a bit of the rift that had grown between CCP and the EvE community.  A lot of people are wondering what amazing things could have been done if CCP had put this type of energy into EvE all along.  For my money, I'm so glad these changes have come but I understand CCP's need to expand their repertoire.  I do hope CCP keeps up the good work they've displayed with this patch even when they do move back to the other projects they had to put on the back-burner to keep EvE from fail-scading.

  For me it's been a good month even if I haven't written anything; I'm lazy :)  Had a fair amount of kills http://edk.evemeatay.info/?a=home&m=11&y=2011 and had a lot of fun which is really all that matters.  Luckily I was able to do this without getting as much playing time as I'd really hoped for; and also spending about a metric shit-ton of my time doing logistics.  I'm looking forward to the new POS fuels personally, but just in case I've put far too much current style fuel in the POS's in the event something goes haywire on us.  I was a little sad about the delay in seeding the new fuel BPO's but I managed to get a set for cheap so I'm happy in the end.  I'm not sure how much research effort I should put in but it appears I should put in at least some.

-Meatay

Crazy Month

  So, it's been a while... again...  Taking over as the NT CEO has been a little more time consuming than expected; but in a good way.  I've certainly found myself more engaged in the overall game thanks to my duties and as a result have had one of the better months in my career PvP wise:  http://edk.evemeatay.info/?a=home&m=10&y=2011 

  There has also been a lot going on in EvE in general which is exciting.  I know it took a near player revolt but I'm really excited to see the new energy in CCP.  While I know they can't give up on WIS I'm sure happy to see a little focus placed on FIS now.  I'm not exactly sure I like these new tier 3 BC's though.  Don't get me wrong, they look great and I've been begging for new ships, but I'm not sure if these are something anyone really wants. Time will tell, and the real world use of course, hopefully I'm wrong.  On the plus side we're getting some hybrid gun love, even if it isn't a lot.  Hopefully it's a test run and a precursor to further balancing :)

  Anyway, have a good weekend.

Capital Re Balance

  Capital ship re balancing is coming and it looks like it may be a bigger step than many of the naysayers previously thought.  I'm not exactly sure how this will all play out but I am pretty certain there will be some angry super capital pilots.  Of course they have spent a lot of time and energy getting that ship so they have a right to be angry but it seems to be the general consensus that the changes are good for EvE.

  As a very big fan of my Moros despite it's long lived lack of usefulness to me so far, I'm interested in the dreadnought changes.  I am sad to see the Moros' drone bay go away because that was the feature that really made it one of the more useful dreads.  It's a bit odd that in buffing dreads they decide to take away a feature BUT; I understand the point being made by removing drones from non carrier capital ships of all sizes (looking at you Titans).  I do hope that as a subsequent re balance they decide to give the dreads back their drones.  In the long run I know those 5 drones don't make that much difference but I have always found having them much better than not, perhaps that's just the Gallente influence though.  I'm interested to see how this plays out and here's hoping my Moros gains a role in fleet fights because I really like that ship for some reason.

  Except for ratting carriers I'm not seeing too much change to standard carriers; they will be a little less effective against smaller ships but they aren't losing their standard drone bays so they will continue to be able to field heavy or medium drones to help with these. We'll see if this sees further changes in either direction, I'm sure this will need a bit of tweaking to get just right.

  The new logoff mechanic is such a big change and something that I think has been lacking for far too long.  I think many will agree that this is an important addition.  Still I hope they keep an eye on this to make sure it isn't too far in the other direction.  With all of these changes CCP will need to keep to their word and monitor the effects because these changes could have big ripples in EvE that we may not completely realize yet (as these things have been seen to happen in the past).


Also, maybe this will lead to some new ships?  Maybe even new capitals?
  -Meatay

Site Redesign (and back from summer)

  It's been a while since this place got a fresh coat of paint.  As a part of shaking off the summer rust in EvE I thought I would take the time to spruce things up around here as well.  First off I contact Rixx Javix over at Evoganda for a shiny new banner design (which also carries over to my killboard).  I really like what he's done with the banner(s), his work is always impressive though.

  In other news things have been active but nothing much worth posting about sadly.  As a new CEO there is plenty of work to be done in and out of game but luckily the Night Thiefs are a strong group of mature guys and it's been pretty fun so far.  There has been plenty of work settling in the new alliance and everyone is trying to shake off both the rust of summer and the distrust of CCP that have combined to make logging in harder and harder this year.  I think Helmar's Post goes a long way towards re-establishing the faith that this game won't just up and quit on us in the near future but it's pretty easy to say the right things so I'll be waiting a bit.