The ol’ college try

Last night, in a Sudafed and NyQuil fueled stuper, I decided to try a game I haven’t really given a fair shake in the past. It’s not a huge triple-A developed venture, and is extremely small population-wise, but it’s something that’s been sticking around and picking up players as it goes. It’s also a sandbox and non-level based, which is a fun twist from the classic MMO structure. I went into it, not really sure what to expect, but I wanted to keep an open mind. The game, (if you hadn’t guessed by now) is Darkfall.

Dun, dun, DUN.

Norathian Bunnies Plot Global Conquest

I want these!

I tried to think of a silly title that included a tidbit of each of the three topics I talked about.

Obviously, this weekend was the Easter Holiday. It was actually one of the most busy for me in a while. I didn’t get to play WAR in any noticeable amount. I missed my goal of achieving RR71, which left me a sad panda, but I smothered those feelings under heaps and heaps of honey ham, potato rolls, macaroni & cheese, brocoli, and strawberry short-cake. It was a very bad day for my health, but it was worth it. There are just some things that southern home cooking does incredible, and this meal was one of them. On the warfront as a whole, its quiet right now, it feels like the calm after a small storm. Last week we had a lot of stuff hit us, and now we’re left to analyze the effects, and see if we need to adjust our preparations for when the real thing hits. It’s a piss-poor analogy, but screw it, I’m working on four hours of sleep, so my apathy is way up, and my attention is way down.

Eve: Day 8

Ezekeil Rage, Log Book, Day 8

If my life before now was as a miner, I don’t know how I got through it. It consisted of the most god-awful tedium I can imagine. Don’t get me wrong, the lead-up is interesting. Sending out probes to hunt a system for anomalies, adjusting their settings and repositioning them almost seems like an art form. Finding a myriad of results and chasing down the one I want feels like solving a puzzle. But then I arrive at the asteroid, and all conscious thought ceases.

I flip on my mining laser, open the cargo hold, and let the computer sort and pull in the bits of ore it deems fit.

Screenshots

I wanted to post up a series of screenshots taken from EVE. So, for visual stimulus, continue reading.

Eve: Day 3

Ezekeil Rage, Log Book, Day 3

The meeting turned out to be rather dull. Merely some mid-level commercial exec by the name of Unash, looking to hire another hand to do some probe reconnaissance for anomalies and maybe some mining. In particular, she had requested to speak with me due to the state in which my ship arrived, her excuse was that my condition made it clear I could come out of a tight situation, but the subtext was clear. I was in a bind, and needed to get any work I could if I wanted to have any hope at life. The little information she had gathered on me, she took from what she made clear had been garnered from the transmission codes my ship sent to the station upon seeking refuge. Maybe I’m too cautious, but there was no chance I was going to show my poor hand to a potential employer, so I accepted her deal, and left for my quarters to await repairs on my ship.

EVE: Day 2

A bantam frigate

Edit: For some reason, my intro keeps getting deleted anytime I throw captions into an image and then edit my text later. It’s baffling me, and quickly approaching the level of pissing me off. 

In any matter, yesterday I continued my winding, treacherous route up the hill that we call the learning curve of EVE. After finishing the “crash course” tutorial, you’re given the option of talking with any of a set of agents who will give introductory missions on typical careers in the world of EVE. I went against the grain of my typical ways and chose exploration for my first lesson. The missions were definitely different, no combat, or enemies, no mining done as of yet. It was purely a go-see type of situation, with one where I grabbed some evidence. For all my “work” I was awarded with a low-end Tech 1 frigate, some isk, and some drones. I have a feeling that my next mission is going to have me getting my hands a bit dirty, in that I’ll actually launch some probes, seek out anomalies, and harvest the crap out of them. We’ll see, but it should be interesting. My plan is to do as many of these career tutorials as possible to build up a good starting fund of isk, and a strong handle on the game itself. 

Relatedy, I found a really cool app for my iPhone called Capsuleer. It lets me keep track of where I am, how my training is going, how much isk I have, and what my skills are. There’s a lot of other little features like server status, blog updates, and some buttons that are greyed out to me still. I imagine for bounties I take, or other similar thigns I have yet to experience. I can see it being a great tool for any player already, as I can see that the server must have gone down last night, and because of that, I’m no longer training any skills. 

EVE: Day 1

This is what my first frigate looks like.

I’m going to try something mostly different for me. I’m thinking about writing my impressions of the days in EVE from the perspective of my character. A bit of roleplay, if you will. I know very little of the actual history of EvE (EVE? eVe? which is it!?), so I’m sure I’ll be way off in some bits of it, but it’s all in good fun. Maybe I’m just in a roleplay mood lately, what with my earlier letter to Sigmar and all that. I didn’t accomplish a whole lot yesterday, basically did the crash course all the way through, bought the “Learning” skill book, and queued up a lot of skills to plug away at. I’m hoping to get out there and do some missions tonight. I will say, the new tutorial is a lot more user friendly than it was even earlier this year, so props to CCP on that one.

Ezekeil Rage, Log book, Day 1

The first noise I remember hearing was an annoying, sharp beeping. It’s persistance and level was one that could not be ignored no matter how willfully my mind wished shut out the unwanted intrusion. With a soft groan, I rolled onto my stomach, palms flat against the deck of my ship. Exerting sore muscles, and protesting joints, I pushed myself up, and swung a knee forward to provide balance. As I lifted my head to look around the compartment, my still-blurry vision slowly registering the reality of my situation.