Tuesday 24 September 2013

Warp Stabs Will Not Save You...

IF YOU ARE AFK.


http://zkillboard.com/detail/33362793/

http://zkillboard.com/detail/33362085/

http://zkillboard.com/detail/33360895/

 (All above are the same guy at different times)

http://zkillboard.com/detail/33233897/

http://zkillboard.com/detail/33236327/


This was a public service announcement brought to you by Arianne Stone. Do not expect any further announcements unless she gets really bored again.


Sunday 10 March 2013

And.....FIGHT!

 I've read quite a view blogs discussing risk averse pilots and what this means for EVE. I speak only from my perspective and what I enjoy in EVE.

I have spent most of my time in low sec, and in what would be described as a pirate corp. I however would probably not describe myself as a pirate, I consider myself a lowsec pvper. I have killed non combat fitted ships, I spent a large part of last summer irritating gunless plexers. But for me the thrill of EVE pvp lies in chasing a target who wants me dead just as much as I want him so. I fly in frigs, mostly because I enjoy the fact that they are highly disposable, and most people are willing to engage them.

With the increased benefits of FW there are, or so it feels, more people in low sec. The new plex system means that they are usually within 10k of the beacon, thus encouraging pvp. There are still a lot of pilots who will warp and not fight, often fitting warp stabs and running at the first sign of danger. I find this disappointing;  fighting in low sec often appears at the FW plexes now, and it is possible to go on a roam through 20-30 systems and have every person that you find run away from you. The most successful roam that I had recently was when I was in a frigate and engaged destroyers, there are many people are out who will only fight if they feel that they seriously out gun their opponent.

I split people being risk averse into two categories:
1. Bears- these people are risk averse because their prime motivator at the time is making isk, they are not interested in fighting, you trying to kill them is just interrupting them making their isk. I don't care if you run from me, if I kill you then I'm pleased because I got an explosion and possibly a reasonable fight, or a shiny killmail; but if you get away that's fine, you've succeeded in not losing any isk, I've only missed out on what would probably be a dull fight.
2. Got to win pvpers- Everyone who has fights wants to win, any fight I engage in I hope to have at least a 30% chance that i'll win. Pilots who always have to out gun someone in the fight, whether through ship type, number of people or links. Winning means different things to different people, for me knowing that my personal skill is what won me the fight is more important then anything else. Will this style of play ruin EVE? No, it just makes it harder for the predominantly solo pilots like myself to get to do what we enjoy the most.

 Can anything be done to encourage people to fly solo more? I don't know, the FW plex limitations are great for restricting the size of ships that are fighting at any one time but do not prevent multiple players from engaging you at once. The limited engagement mechanic is an interesting one and is designed to make 1v1's easier, I got challenged to a duel the other day which I lost, massive derp on my part, my guns were pre overheated and ready to lock when I landed, along with my scram and web and they just never started to fire, it then took me far too long to realise this and I never stood a chance. The issue in low sec with this mechanic is the lack of Concord, anyone can join in on the fight and all they lose is sec status. So far so gloomy, I really don't know how to get people to appreciate my play style and enjoy the thrill of finishing a fight with 10% structure knowing that you gave your all and were successful and out played someone.

 For me the best fights are like a game of chess, you start with the same number of pieces, it's how you use them that counts.

Thursday 28 February 2013

A Slow Month

Real life has unfortunately prevented me from being in game very much this month so I don't have a lot of fights to write about. However I do have a shiny new set up and hope to be putting it to good use as soon as things die down at work.

I've taken out a TD firetail a few times this month to great success. http://r1der.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=16234896 being a good example, with an optimal range script and the thrasher scrammed I'm able to whittle away at their shields with little threat to my ship. I had a fun afternoon flying a rifter, I managed to get in two fights with other rifters, which I won before being outgunned by a small gang of goons. The first goon ship to land was a dual rep incursus which was unable to hit me at 8,000k but my dps was too low to break the reps, I would like to try the rifter against an Incursus again to see if I would be able to run it's cap low enough to break it's tank. 

Last Friday I went on one of Judge Sarn's famous drunk roams, from what I remember it was good fun and we got in some great kills against some raging noobs, see   http://thethunderhorsechronicles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/judge-sarn-lead-black-sheep-on-another.html for details.

The largest part of my Eve time this month has been spent on forums and listening to podcasts. I first heard of http://crossingzebras.com/ through twitter, podcasts have never really interested me, I commute to work and tend to listen to music and read on my commute, however I thought that I would give Zebras a chance as Xander was doing interviews with all the CSM8 candidates who were interested and I'm always curious as to how the candidates will sell themselves. So far, with the exception of Night Beagle all the candidates have done well imho, evcn Xenuria exceeded my expectation of him. Some of them have a stronger platform then others, personally I dislike the "I stand for everyone" platform, it's not possible, in the end you will weigh up the options and decide what is best for the game based on your own personal experiences and biases, not the random guy who evemailed you a diatribe on why suicide ganking should be nerfed. Marc Scaurus is the candidate who I'm likely to be backing as he is the only guy to be standing on a low sec platform and is interested in making low sec as a whole more appealing to players, not just focusing on FW. He interviewed reasonably well, although I didn't get a strong idea of what he thought should be done to improve low sec only that he felt that it should be improved.

When I was a new player I spent about 3-4 months in the uni, I didn't really enjoy it, the corporation was too large for me and I found it overwhelming. I also quickly realised that large fleet fights weren't going to be my thing, and at the time that was the standard Eve Uni fighting style, so I left and became a pirate. However I have always been quite fond of the uni, despite it's flaws, the arrogance and pomposity of some of the members, it does a good job keeping new players in the game and teaching them the basics of Eve. I do spend some time of the Eve Uni forums and offer comments on subjects that I find interesting and think that my perspective might be of use, thus I read Kelduum's post on the 317b being taken away from the Uni. I came away disappointed, it appears beyond doubt now that John was botting, and thus the isk being taken away is the right thing to do afaik, no corporation or individual should be able to profit from botting. And no third party should be able to find out any information about what I've done on my account via CCP, it is private even if they stand to profit from my actions. Greed is a terrible thing and can impair even the most rational person's judgement.

On that note I'm off to play Blink and become space rich from gambling :)

Wednesday 30 January 2013

Tusker's FFA






Apologies for the extreme lateness of this posting, I've been having issues with my computer and editing the video into a vaguely presentable state took far longer then expected. I also have lost the post that I originally wrote straight after the event so am just writing off the cuff.

At the beginning of January The Tuskers held a frigate free for all and I manage to spend the whole 6 hours flying in it. I had an absolute blast, I spent most of my time at the top belt just engaging the ship that was closest to me, all technique went out the window. I'm proud to say that I was one of the top losers for the event, I curse the fact that I left system to pick up one of my ships and thus missed out on an hour or so of shooting ships. 

I'd like to thank The Tuskers for putting together such a fun, well organised event, also for giving me lots of ships to explode :D

The video below shows some of my highlights from the event, apologies again for the poor editing of it, I'm still learning, hopefully next time it will be better.



Wednesday 23 January 2013

EVE is real

......I even have to make shopping lists.



I do have a couple of posts planned computer issues have prevented me from uploading a video that I made of The Tuskers FFA but soon.