Distractions

Well i've been thinking of an excuse as to why i've been away to those very few readers i have, but simply put, i've been distracted. With me having a nice little break from work at the beginning of the year and me getting a nice little bonus i spent my money on a few things, mostly games.

I've never been the type of person to consistantly play the one game, i play EVE a lot, but playing too much kills my enthusiasm. So here what i got:

• Batman: Arkham Asylum: my favourite game release this year, absolutely fantastic game. Great atmosphere, great dialogue, great voiceovers (classic batman cartoon fans rejoice!), my only issue it was a bit short, i completed it in just under 10 hours... then started again on hard.
• Red Faction: Guerilla Warfare: fun game, no immersion though so i didnt really get roped into the story. Just blew a lot of stuff up.
• FEAR 2: Not played much of this yet, seems to be very much like the first one though, just slightly better graphically. Not that thats an issue...
• Farcry 2: I enjoyed the first game up until mutants invaded, so when i heard this was like the that minus mutants then i thought i must try it out. Its not a bad game, can be a tad difficult if you approach things the wrong way, thats the way it should be though. One of my few gripes with the game though is there is way too much driving.
• Left4Dead: Very fun. Not much more to say on that. Could do with a few more maps though.

Thats a little line-up of what i bought, but thats not all. The Power of 2 grabbed me also so i have an alt now. Which i said i'd never do, but with Terra's training plan not actually involving any Industry for the next year, i thought it'd help to help to have a second pod in the game.

The fiction i was working on has been scrapped, i'm my own worst critic when it comes to this sort of thing,  so you wont see it until i'm happy.

Also head over to Roc's blog, his travel to iceland has been a funny tale so far, i've enjoyed reading it.

Fly safe.

Another Week

Well almost a week has gone and i know, its a new blog and i'm already lacking posts, but its been a slow week. Not much has happened at all, my connection was playing up so that stopped me from mission running, i'm back at work so i can't play as much.So here's a "Filler!"

News!

Planet Overhaul
Anyone who's been on sisi (patch currently downloading) this week will probably have seen the changes to the planets, nice shiny new reskins, and from what i can see, they're either bigger or your now warping closer. Either way, they are very very impressive.

AT7
We have to congratulate Pandemic Legion in a convincing win yesterday in what has been for me the most exciting Alliance Tournament so far. Anyone else wish they'd used the Minmatar lineup in the last fight instead?

Faction Ship Changes
From what i've read, people seem to have a mixed reaction to the changes, i'm usually not that bothered about this sort of thing. I've always been a "play the game as it is" kinda guy when it comes to MMO's, but i understand that people know better. Although, iwhen it comes to how good faction items should be, considering their meta rating i'd place them above T2.

Well thats all for a poor filler post, hopefully should have my short fiction finished by wednesday, on its final draft and making some small edits.

Security Incursions

The great thing about casual corps is the fact that they're never bossy, i love that, PUFS is a very casual corp. With only 2 ops a week and neither being 'compulsory' people can choose wether they want to help the corp out and normally over half turn up. Now i'm not saying casual is the way forward, its far from the truth, for instance we're very lax when it comes to a lot of things, the most dangerous being security, and over the last two days we saw where we were going wrong. This will be the first recruitment drive since i joined the corp a month ago and from what we knew, we where doing well. Picking up new players here and there few old ones, but with the API being down we got trusting, probably too trusting.

First incident was sunday night, i was mining in my hulk, fleeted up with our corps orca to get bonuses and hit a belt. I managed to get a few cycles done before i was webbed and scrammed by one of the new members flying a cormorant, i knew instantly that this wasn't a joke as he started to pepper my hulk. Needless to say i lost the t2 fitted and rigged exhumer, and wasn't pleased at all. A corp member refunded the hulk though, but it still counts as a loss.

Second incident was on a grander scale after recruiting quite a few members. With it being a monday the corp mining op was a go, and although i wasnt there there was a decent turnout. I logged on about 2 hours into the op, i was greeted with unusual wtfs and omgs, i knew from that things had gone sour. After people ragequitting and the CEO and officers calmed down i got some info. Basically 90% of the new recruits had been part of jihadswarm, and had given the location of the op to a likely alt/friend in goonswarm, who visited with a smartbomb fitted raven. The rest speaks for itself really.

Now we need to pick up the pieces, most of the ships and implants have been replaced leaving a nice hole where peoples wallets should be. But it's all part of the game eh?
This is the reason i wasn't angry when i lost the hulk, shit happens, sure its painful, but its still part of everyday life. Things like this happen to corps all over empire and one of two things happens. 1. The members ragequit, leaving the CEO with a nice empty corp or 2. The corp stands by the CEO, makes sure he knows that your not beaten, ready to rebuild what was lost and make sure it doesnt happen again. The next few days the security within the corp will be looked at and new ways to go about recruitment will be arranged.

My leaving note for today is, im not sure how this was profitable for the goons but kudos for living life in EVE your way and not giving a shit about what other alliances/corps say.

Why I Play EVE Online

Having made this blog 2 days ago and argued with myself over what i should open with i decided to go with a light introduction, what i'll mostly be writing/complaining/rambling about and why i play the MMO - EVE Online .

Introduction

My real life name is Lee Duffin, i'm 22, male and live in the north west of England (UK for those of you not great with geography). I've been playing EVE on and off since its release but only got really into it in 2007, when i started a new character, founded an industrial corporation (IICL) and had a nice healthy number of newbies flying under me. Unfortunatly i had to take a year out of playing for personal reasons and on my return, the corp had been disbanded and remade under a new name. I joined their ranks as a lowly miner and said i wouldnt take on any higher roles just incase i had to stop playing again, which i did, for another 9 months.

Which brings us to 2009, RL sorted out, nice semi-healthy cash flow and the need to build and destroy (mostly my own) spaceships, i managed to get myself back online. After a few days faffing about with no sense of direction i decided to check out the recruitment channel. Sifting through the spam seemed pointless all the corps where looking to get into 0.0, and i just wasnt ready for that, being typically a noob with a bit of industrial knowledge. So i put a random '22mil SP carebear looking for empire corp with direction' in and got a convo request almost instantly. After a nice chat with the CEO of (PUFS) i decided to join this group of miners in their mission to build stuff. So far they've been a great corp, with casual and 'Hardcore' gamers nicely balanced, there's always someone to talk to and for the time being i'm happy.

Writing/Complaining/Rambling

I'll mostly be talking about my weekly life in the sandbox, my losses, my gains and so forth. I'll most likely end up complaining at some point about a game mechanic or bug i've encountered. I'd like to do little bits of fiction aswell, i'm not overly confident in my ability to write but i think i have some nice idea's. So i'll write them down and hopefully with some feedback, know how to better myself.

Why i play EVE Online

Simply put, EVE Online out of all the MMOs i've tried over the years (GW and WoW included) was and still is the MMO i feel most comfortable playing. With it not just being a mad dash to the end game, grinding instances and missions for UBE|2 L33T L00t, i can pretty much do whatever i want. Some days i mine all day, other days i'll run level 4 missions, other days i'll do some exploration (granted i suck majorly, but its a fun change none the less) and some days i'll do nothing at all and just chat. Giving players so much choice trumps giving them a linear path to follow, and i'm sure lots of you will agree.

That said i can see why people can become addicted to this sort of game. With the amount of choices it can be almost described as a 'Life Simulator', working hard mining/mission running/pirating/whatever to finally get that ship you've always wanted can be gratifying and losing it can be heartbreaking. It all adds to the immersion, no other MMO i've played can make you regret your mistakes as much as EVE, make you feel extatic when you've achieved something. It almost feels less like an average video game and more of a game of survival, surviving in the harshest of universes, and for that i love it.