The Crown?

  I've never really longed to be a CEO in this game, despite all of the years that I have been playing.  Still, I've always been interested in what it takes to run a corporation and all of the work the leadership has been doing for us "grunts."  So I've taken advantage of the downtime during the summer and the mini-break my corp is taking to experiment in creating my own.  Maybe it's just an excuse to play with creating a website and a forum (first time setting up a php forum) but I find it interesting.  I've also already gained an appreciation for the CEO and Directors of AU-F just for dealing with the corporation management screen and setting up the titles.

  At first it was just a little bit of an experiment but I do know that I have plenty of advice to share with new players and the summer lends itself well to "management" for me.  Meaning I can log on plenty but maybe not devote a solid period of time to roaming or ratting.  Because of this I believe I will keep the corp open for a while and hopefully recruit the next batch of pilots to bravely wade from hisec into 0.0.  In the meantime perhaps I can share some knowledge and help them make a little isk.

In Your Dreams

  I may have been out of EvE for the past few weeks but I've been reading plenty of blogs, dev postings, and forum chatter.  I've actually been working on a post that will kick start my "Getting Started in EvE" project but it's more difficult than expected to pick the best ships of each race for beginners.

  Anyway, I notice your dream ships are? over at Astral's and I thought I might chime in.  I absolutely agree with Rixx over at Evoganda and since he has taken the two sexiest ships in the game I think I have to go another direction.

  As a ratting vessel my newly acquired Rattlesnake is tempting to pick, it sure can tank some amazing damage.  But basically being a super Dominix is about all it's good for.  So on to the ships I would choose to magically appear if I had the choice:

Widow

  It's a tough choice between the Sin and the Widow for me, but given the very impressive special abilities I have to go Widow.  This is just one of those ships that I would love to fly but cannot really afford to.  Being an exclusively PvP ship that combination doesn't make it very likely to ever show up in my hanger.  Still, if given a "free" Widow I would certainly love to take it for a spin.

Anshar

  Of course it's tempting to put down a titan, or even a Nyx here but I have to say that I would choose an Anshar.  Of course it's ugly as sin, and burns gas like a 56 Chevy, but Jump Freighters are both really expensive and really (really) useful.  So that makes it a ship I would love to have given to me.

  So, if anyone out there would like to hand me one of these bad boys please just contract it to me :)

The New Player Experience in EvE

  So, one of my best friends just asked me to join him in WOW.  This is unusual for many reasons, not the least of which is me starting a sentence with a conjunction.  First I am not really what you would call a "gamer" in that the only games I really play are EvE, NCAA Football, and Halo.  Second my friends are in the same category as me.  And third (another conjunction) I hate WOW for innumerable reasons.

  In the end I broke down and did play some WOW, and am actually still playing for at least a little while.  Really this is just a covert mission to get this friend into EvE but there are some problems with this task.  The major problem to me is not the steep learning curve of EvE or any of the other insane complications of a game with so much freedom.  The main problem with getting started in EvE is the complete lack of an entry level guide or guides that explain the nuances of getting your EvE career kicked off.

  While getting started in WOW there are guides on everything from basic character selection all the way up to top level (end game) raiding.  Now, EvE's greatest virtue is the openness of the environment; or the "sandbox."  The second greatest virtue is the incredible player base and the creativity that has stemmed from that.  We have player created content such as the Blog Pack, Capsuleer, EvE Bloggers Portal, and the work of the great Chribba.  Within this (and other) content there is an incredible amount of information and ingenuity to be gleaned.  However there is not much in the way of "first time user" content welcoming new people to EvE.

  I sympathize with the pride many players feel in EvE but I am extremely disheartened by the lack of player driven outreach to increasing the player base and spreading the good word about how amazing New Eden is.  To that end I had originally planned to create a website for the truly "noob" among us but given my current workload in RL i just don't think I can commit to it.  However, I would really like to see this happen so to kick start it I plan to write a series of guides; starting with racial ships and expanding into gameplay styles.  If anyone among you would like to assist (or take the lead) in creating a new player experience web portal I will offer my personal web space for hosting, ISK, writing, planning, or any other assistance I can so please hit me up @ evemeatay at yahoo.com

  I know we have an incredible amount of talent and desire, I think it's time to show that off.

Summer Slump

I (like many others) have fallen into the "summer slump" and haven't even logged into EvE in over a week for anything more than skill changing.  I had considered applying to M3Corp but I believe I am going to wait until I come back full time to make any moves.

I the mean time it looks like I will be able to get a ton of those pesky little skills trained which I am really happy about.

CSM Issues

  I was a little disheartened to read Mynxee's recap of the CSM summit while I was traveling this week.  It seems like such a shame for CCP to ask for player input at such a high level and basically ignore the input that isn't a) something they want to do anyway or b) a fully game breaking issue (in the technical sense).  I was also pretty upset to hear about the push back she received on the concept of holding CCP publicly accountable; especially when it was just by listing outstanding issues and their resolution timeline.  I do hope she sticks to her guns here and provides all information that isn't forbidden by the NDA.

Mynxee's recap:

http://lifeinlowsec.blogspot.com/2010/06/csm-june-2010-summit-retrospective.html

  In the end I do have a lot of faith in CCP though.  They have worked to make so many things right by the player in my experience with them and I hope this is just a growing pain along that road.  The server move issue is just one example of the efforts they have taken.  I admit that I love those free skill points I received.  I am also very interested in exactly what that system was developed for, since CCP admitted that it was already in the pipeline for another reason.  I have my fingers crossed for a form of skill redistribution but I know that would be something that is terribly unfair to new players.  CCP has always taken precautions to both award old players and protect new players, so I will be waiting anxiously to see what this system is meant to do.



On a completely unrelated note, I have really enjoyed Rixx's (over at Evoganda) tales of his "vacation" on Caldari Prime:
http://eveoganda.blogspot.com/search/label/story

and Kirith's breakdown of the amazing special ships of New Eden:
http://www.ninveah.com/search/label/Ships

Work Sucks (ask Blink 182)

  It's been a tough week for me and if you happen to be attempting to log in right now you can see it may not be the best week at CCP either.  Rixx over at Evoganda has the rundown, I swear it's all true :) http://eveoganda.blogspot.com/2010/06/re-ccp-servers.html

A Change of Pace

  Today the AU-F parted ways with our alliance Fatal Ascension.  The major driving factor for this is a need to "catch our breath" among the corporation at a time when the alliance is stepping up efforts at colonizing and defending their own space.  Of course other factors affected the decision but many of them stem from the differing paces between us.  While I have been a member of Aurelius Federation (well over a year) we have struggled with the summer slump in EvE and the corporation embraces that.  With the break from the alliance we will be able to focus on the more relaxed aspects of life in New Eden and return to 0.0 living with renewed energy when the time comes.

  I am looking forward to this as one of the projects we hope to take on this summer is an extended foray into wormhole living.  It's been a long time since my last visit to a wormhole (where we lived for about a month) and am looking forward to returning.  I have heard that we can expect more visitors these days than in the past which should provide some excitement.  On the other hand there will be no 0.0 politics, proxy wars, or last second CTA's to detract from the fun of logging in when you are in a casual mindset.

  Stay tuned for updates on the WH project (still currently unnamed).