Back on track with mining

Okay, so after around 8 days the war was over. Initially our alliance took a fair amount of losses from various battlefleets, but a few days in the tides turned and we gave them a good hiding for a while...

I'm not 100% on what went on, unfortunatly due to real life stuff, I was wasn't online through most of the war, so I didn't get a chance to test out my Rifter for pvp - only a few security missions here and there (for the most part it was great).

I know that both sides agreed on an unofficial ceasefire and about a day or so later the war had ended. I recieved an email and won't go into all the details but I believe money changed hands to protect one of our POS, whatever your opinion on this - from what I gather protecting it with force, we stood to lose many ships and it came down to a cost vs benefits scenario - so I guess this was a sensible solution.

So, here I am back to mining and carrying on learning skills. As I mentioned in a previous post I was given a Retriever, which I kitted out yesterday with some Strip Lasers - boy are they quicker! I can mine a lot more in a shorter space of time and solo mining is nowhere near as bad with the increased cargo space. All in all I'm having a blast in EVE - I realise there is so much I don't know but at the moment, I'm really just trying to concentrate on mining and making some decent money. If I try and be too many things at once, I'm going to lose the plot I think lol. When I've got to a better stage I'll probablly do what most seem to, running another account paid for by ISK for hauling and pvp but until them I'm happy mining!

Weekend Update

So apart from the threat of imminent war, nothing much has happened during the week.  I've been learning skills - particularly Industrial 5, which has allowed me to train for Barges.  I've spent all day Saturday mining in a small group (using a probe kitted out with mining II lasers, which was given to me) and have also half kitted out a Rifter for tommorow, which I think is a cool looking ship.

As I mentioned in my previous post, mining ops have been suspended, so the alliance is calling for anyone (including noobs), to try and participate in pvp - it will be my first time, so I haven't got long to learn some basics and I think I should definately get some insurance!  Good job I didn't buy those expensive implants today that I was going to.  I'll be giving some more details over the coming details of the turnout of the war.

Here's some randoms of me mining today:

Wardecced Again

Well not us specifically but our Alliance, which obviously means were at war too.  I think it's about 12 hours until we are officially at war again.  All mining operations are suspended until war end, damn it.  The good thing is a kind corp member gave me a Retriever today, so I'm training barges level 3 at the moment and when the war is over I'll be able to use it, great!

Mining Guide

Corp members pointed me in the direction of this mining guide : Halada's Mining Guide v3.0 - Extended

As far as I know it's the latest version and I thought it would be a good idea to post up in case any other noobies end up reading the blog.

I'm only part way into reading it, but it's very informative and easy to read/understand, which is how I prefer it lol.  Anyway direct download link is here for anyone that wants it :

http://www.lsjv-eve.com/completeminersguide/completeminersguide_v3-0.pdf

Case of the mysterious invincible Supply Shipment....

So most of yesterday was spent doing missions in and around the surrounding systems of Aydo.  I'm currenly waiting on the Barges skill to train, so mining wasn't worth it for me yesterday. 

I did get the oportunity to run some higher level missions with my corp at one point which were very lucrative and full of danger and they let me keep all the loot!

Anyway, before bed I decided to do one last mission of my own (A New Venture - Healthy Competition 3/5).  It was an encounter near Synchelle IV - Asteroid Belt 1 in a dead space pocket, where I had to intercept a Supply Shipment out of the reach of Concord and basically blow it up to retrieve construction tools. 

Firstly I was amazed at how beutiful the area was and I'm sure most of you come across this sort of thing, but for me it was my first time so I just had to take some pics.  Secondly and more annoyingly, the quest was either bugged or my weapons weren't powerfull enough, but the supply shipment's shield kept healing rather quickly.  I am obviously a noobie, but I had four guns (Howitzer 280mm Artillery 1 with nuclear ammo) trained on this thing for ages!  I managed to get the shield down to about half way, but when the guns reloaded I lost a lot of that. 

Anyway here's some pictures of this nice looking area :

My EVE Space

I've been having a read around various peoples EVE blogs and it seems this is the done thing, so I thought I would post up a picture of my EVE space.  I play EVE situated in a spare downstairs room in my house, which I call the "gamesroom".  Its not a massive room, but it's spacious enough to fit my pc one end of the room and at the other end a 50" 1080p Plasma for Xbox 360 games and Blurays.  The room has double doors which back onto the garden, so there's plenty of light IF I want (which I don't normally lol).  At the moment there's a bit of a void in the center of the room which will be filled with a nice leather 2 seater sofa and a table for board games.

As a side note, I'm quickly beginning to see why most people have more than one screen for EVE - the amount of windows one can have open at a time is ridiculous.  I'll probablly invest in one sooner or later, but that will also mean a new desk as mine is pretty small and won't fit another on.

Weekend Update

So, during my week or so in Enclave Industries our alliance were wardecced by Goram Industries for what I believe to be the third time.  I'm not entirely sure who's in the alliance (I should really find out!)  It's my first experience at war and after I relocated to Aydoteaux, mining operations were dodgy at best and after the alliance lost a couple of expensive mining ships, our CEO put a total ban on mining until the war was over.  His main fear was that such victories would spur them on to continue the war effort.  As it happened, they spent most of the time hiding in Stations and the war was not continued.  At present I'm training skills for mining barges so I can use bigger ships and make things a hell of a lot easier and I've just kitted out a ship (Thrasher) to be used as a combi for both salvaging and fighting.  Here is she: (I haven't named her as yet)

And so the journey begins!

So I made the character Letarious (Minmitar) and began to play the trial - this time properly, doing the various tutorials (around Embod) so I can actually learn.  Over my time in the trial, I was accosted by a bunch of pirates to join them in probing and basically nicking other peoples loot.  The group leader was possibly insane and was kitting a group of us up with probe ships and teaching us what to do, about a week into the trial, he dissapeared and I haven't seen him online since.  So I was left with a bit of a dilema - try and learn pirating myself, or find another way to play the game.  It had also begun to dawn on me the sheer size and depth to the game, which although I found overwhelming on one hand but very exciting and engaging on the other.  After some friendly help in the "Rookie" channel I decided to do some mining as a starting point and after a few days of watching the recruiting channel - I had a nice chat with a chap and joined "Enclave Industries".  So far I've been there just over a week and have decided to subscribe to the game (so I am no longer using trial account).  The guys in game are for the most part very nice and helpful chaps.  I was given 5 million Isk once I was accepted and I've had plenty of advice and even a couple of ships built for me, which is really great.

All in all I really feel like I've connected with the game this time around and I'm beginning to understand that mostly the only limits in the game are imposed by the player, it seems to be not a question of what can you do, but what can't you do!

In summary, I'm gradually (very slowly) starting to understand the game, as one corp member said "It fairly easy to learn, but takes a lifetime to master".  As I'm discovering and learning I'm really enjoying the game and of course the social side of it - which I firmly believe is the building blocks to any good MMO, if you can get in a decent corp with genuinely decent people, then youve got a good base to work out from.

And so the blog begins!

Aside from a basic family blog I have, this is my first venture into the blogging world, so please bear with me! I'm not sure what direction I want this to head in yet, but I guess I'll be trying to detail my goings on with my character(s) in EVE over time as a starting point.

At the moment I've begun reading a few EVE blogs to get a feel and idea for what people do in these things.

Although I have a fairly long gaming history (to be detailed in another blog I'm planning on doing) I have just started playing EVE properly for the first time, so hopefully this blog will go hand in hand with it. So how did I end up playing EVE?

Well, here's a brief history of my MMO experience so you know what background I'm coming from :

I started playing MMO's around 2005 I think it was - when I first got the internet in my own place. I started with Star Wars Galaxies as a friend was playing it and recommended I join, I jumped at the chance and I guess like most people joining an MMO for the first time was both overwhelmed and amazed by the new virtual world presented before me. I unfortunately didn't have much time on SWG as my friend left for personal reasons and I had no idea what I was doing in game, which also led me to quit pretty quickly. I went back to "normal" gaming for a bit, but having had a taster of MMO life it wasn't long before I needed something to fill the gap.

I briefly read into WoW but was put off joining/doing a trial by the cartoony graphics. Guild Wars had not long been out and although technically it's not an MMO, it was good enough for me at the time and the non-subscription model suited me on a limited budget. I think I played that for around 6 months before eventually doing a WoW trial.

WoW is my longest played MMO to date, I think all in all it was around 3 and bit years I played, give or take a few months when I had breaks from the game. I thoroughly enjoyed the game for the most part, the most part being when I was in a good guild and had friendly help available to me but sadly due to many different reasons the guild I was in disbanded and although I formed up again with some friends, differences of opinion, server changes and general in game boredom made things disintegrate - I never really found another guild I could call "home" and had already payed for enough server changes in the previous year and didn't have the time/desire to do any more!

And, so not long after Wrath of the Lich King came out - I left. I sold my account on Ebay to be precise, not for the money as such, but so that I could never be tempted back to WoW again, at least not so easily. Over the top? Perhaps, but at the time I really had had enough of the game!

It was at this time I briefly got my first taste of EVE, from a trial I'd seen advertised online. Sadly I didn't give it hardly any time at all and probablly from being used to the same standard MMO model it didn't take long for me to die a few times and give up rather quickly.

So next in line was a brief stint on Warhammer Online, which I quite enjoyed but there was some kind of memory leak or something when doing PVP in big groups in keeps. This meant that I was reduced to a few frames a second, even though at the time I had the most powerful graphics card on the market (Radeon 4870x2). Regardless, the problem didn't seem to get fixed and a few other issues were arising with the social aspect of the game, so I decided to quit.

Shortly afterwards I moved house, so was offline for a couple of months waiting for phone lines to be installed at my new place. I was also totally broke after the move, so sold my gaming pc (somewhere around £800) to put towards things I needed for the new place - a sensible move on the one hand, but before long I started having withdrawals from both MMO's and gaming in general. I already had two Xbox 360's (One for my eldest son and one for me) so I decided that now the internet was installed, I'd use that for my gaming platform until I could afford a new pc. For a month or two I put up with (and to be fair enjoyed some) low res games games best suited to the console before I couldn't handle it any longer and began saving for a new pc. What seemed like an eternity passed and before long I had another pc, better than my last gaming rig.

Anyway, back on track. So the thirst for MMO's returned and I found myself scouring the internet for what to play and trying to find something that I would stick at. I tried Aion Online, having briefly played the Beta and been amazed at the graphics and details for an MMO I was very keen to play the retail when it arrived. Sadly it didn't live up to my expectations and in my opinion it's just far too grindy and although it has some nice touches (flying etc) I found the novelty wore off very quickly and the whole thing just submerged into one big grind fest. So I did some research online for my next MMO and thought I'd try out Lord of the Rings Online.

Lotro got some good ratings around the internet and I thought I would give it a go. I played for around 6 months and to be honest I really enjoyed most of my time on the game, people were pretty helpful, although I did have some issues getting groups at the earlier levels, but I suppose that's to be expected. I have since left the game for a couple of months, not out of choice but rather concentrating on real life issues had led me to unsubscibe. As well as EVE I will be playing Lotro also, it's a great MMO in my opinion - not sure if it's the setting or the fact it's a pretty "easy going" MMO or what, but I just found it pretty enjoyable.

Finally (and thanks for sticking with me so far), I was browsing Steam one day as I use Steam for 90% of my pc gaming these days. I have a fair amount of purchases on Steam (around 50) and was looking for something new to play - I saw the trial of EVE available and almost immediately disregarded it from the memories of my previous and brief encounter with the game. Something, I'm not entirely sure what it was, spurred me to read reviews of the game and more opinions on it. For the most part, time and time again I kept reading that it was such a unique MMO and that the learning curve was steep, but once your past that the game really opens up and you'll reap the benefits - that kind of thing.

I went on like this for a few days, reading reviews etc, before one evening a few weeks ago I decided "what the heck" and downloaded the trial again. I joined and made a character called "Letarious", which I will talk more about in my next blog post. Sorry for the big intro and thanks for reading!

- Matt