Request for EVE (EvE?) Online Players: Some sort of blog/drama/article base of all major events

[The Stig]

I got redirected to a site today where it detailed someone from somewhere, forgive me I don't know the names but I'm sure any major player would've heard of it, doing things in RL in an attempt to take down the opponent's spaceship. In this case, it was actually taking out a guy's power to the building so his ship can be ambushed. Quite funny in my mind as serious business as it was, I want to read more. The most memorable huge event was the one I read on BBC where "BoB" got taken over/name stolen/something and this changed a lot of the in-game world/politics and such.

One or two more links here and there and again I've begun to get fascinated by it all again, as reading it fills me with some sort of buzz. But they had limited articles.

Since the game seems quite political now with only a handful of groups dominating (from my point of view after reading a few articles), I'm gonna hunt down some sort of n00b guide to see how it teaches you to play, because the impression I'm getting now is that if I start playing (casually) I should immediately find some sort of a home or get wrecked very fast. I'm aware of the learning curve and cruelness of the game but unless I get lots of time to get hooked I doubt I'll be too competitive.

So yeh, is there some sort of site which articles the most major events (war, sabotage, traitors, that stuff), hopefully written quite well and not one sided? I would very much like to read more and perhaps participate.

Some sort of neutral newbie guide would also be helpful, but not too important right now.

[Eanae]

This might possibly be it?

The Eve Online Section - Kugutsumen

[The Stig]

Thanks for that, the articles/accounts of events is very interesting. I'll enjoy reading them at work tommorow.

[Korietsu]

You can also check out eve.battleclinic.com

[Jotaru]

The Eve Online Section - Kugutsumen

Old kingpin of Snigg/Pandemic Legion, a pilot I've personally flown under for months, and was proud to be one of many bearing the 'Free Kugutsumen!' shipname after his banning.

Kinda cool how the politics of the game work out, and to be someone who's actually known them

[The Stig]

You can also check out eve.battleclinic.com

Thanks! Although I have little to no clue to what exactly all these big "clans" (corps?) and planets/worlds/activities are, on a shallow level they appear interesting to read.

The drama and buzz but also the idea of doing all these spacy activities is making it all seem fun and interesting.

Hopefully it'll be quiet today so I can read more. =)

[Korietsu]

Alot of the "news" in eve is part of the IC or Interstellar Correspondence , which is basically fan-fiction driving the universe. The Corps talk is about corps that have sovereignty over null-sec space, which is basically the manifest destiny of eve.

Corps are allowed to declare war on other corps, regardless of faction, and begin open warfare in any part of space with no repercussions other than possibly losing ships/territory/etc. Alliances can do the same.

There are also large player run businesses/lotteries like ships of eve, and the E-bank ( which is lol ). Its a fun universe untill you can't find any PvP, and then it's just gay.

[Jotaru]

TheStig, if you're interested, PM me, and I'll hook you up with some more drama and such. A lot of the in-game goings-on are through, as said, IC, and are distributed in-game. When you log in you get a blurb about in-game news, and when you open in-game browser it takes you to that page again. Its fun; when you participate in a huge fleet battle, and the next day its world-wide news for every player to read, it definitely helps with immersion

I'd be more than happy to hook you up with some of those in-game blurbs or find some various blogs and such for you if interested. Are you looking into playing the game, or just interested in the micro-politics going on?

[The Stig]

Thanks Jotaru..

I'm not sure, I'm actually kinda looking to play the game but in a scrubby way. Basically what I mean is that, I'll like to watch/read about the micro politics of everything, and join up some corp for social reasons, but would like to participate in huge scale wars no matter how weak I am, like a cannon fodder =p

The idea of floating around in space, possibly being a bounty hunter (are bounties set by the game on NPCs or by PCs which it in some auction house like area and people just read/take them?), tending/building my own ship, that kinda thing, is quite attractive to me.

I've been browsing that Ten Ton Hammer site and it's been proving to be nice reads. Also because of the game's centralised nature, anything that can happen and will happen is easily able to be caught up on.

One thing I have wondered about, is it possible to ... well, I know there's these "security" zones where you get "protected", but I'm sure all the action happens outside of these zones, is there anyway to make me "not PvPable" and just be merely a spectator in perhaps big fights? Or can I (haven't 100% read how ships work but motherships sound HUGEEEE) hide in another player's mothership to "watch" lol (and hope it don't blow up in the carnage).

EDIT: also, the fact that somethingawful is largely involved (I'm a fan of their site, but I won't dare troll them or anything) = entertaining

[Jotaru]

Its a bit hard to explain without you not playing- however, there's a free 14 day trial, you should at least give it a go Eve is nice in that there's so many options and you can do what you want (I guess you can say this about a lot of MMO's?) There are plenty of people who play just to RP- you can float around and just spectate and write up articles if you choose. There are some people around who fly shuttles / whatever (non-combat ships) but in low-security space there is always someone who will blow you up, no matter what. Pirates love to see explosions, even if you're a well-renowned journalist in a ship with no guns, they'll still pop you.

Bounty Hunting is possible, but it doesn't usually happen, because the bounty system is screwed. I can go in and set, say, 5,000,000 bounty on your head today if I want. People might see this and add to it- by the end of the day you might have a $20,000,000 bounty on your head. Seems cool, right? What CCP didn't foresee is that you can just have an alt of yours blow you up and reap the bounty for yourself... kinda eliminating the point of a bounty altogether. Anyone with a sizeable bounty is likely someone who never undocks from a station (unkillable) or will just kill themself and take your money. There is always the option of being in a merc or pirate corp tho- getting paid to kill certain other corps, or blowing up anyone you deem fit and taking their items (When your ship blows up, some of your fitted items get destroyed whilst others are left in space for people to loot)

Security zones are pretty simple- all of space is divided up by security status. As low as 0.0 and as high as 1.0. In 0.5-1.0, you can't PVP without getting blown up by the local police force (with some exceptions), so you almost never see it unless its a suicide group intent on destroying you before the police force destroys them. It doesn't happen often, but it does, usually when you're in a weak industrial full of expensive loot.

In 0.1-0.4, you can PVP, but you lose security status. You have a personal security status of anywhere from -10 to +10, basically indicating how dangerous you are. At -2 and below, you start to become restricted from what high-sec space you can enter- at -5 you can't enter 0.5 or above without being kill-on-sight by the police force In 'low-sec' there is often PVP, but mostly pirates. There is SOME security in that if you are attacked by a stargate / station there are sentries that will shoot your attackers, but almost anyone who will attack you will simply fit a ship that can tank this damage. In 0.0, there is open PVP- you can attack anyone without any security status hit / police involvement.

The two real exceptions are wars, and Factinal Warfare. If your corporation is involved in a war with another corporation, you can freely fight anywhere and the police will intervene. Similarly, if you sign up for factional warfare (basically, where your race fights another race) there is open PVP anywhere against that race. So, its very possible to be 'safe' in these high-security systems while still either being part of these huge factional warfare fights, or simply watching them by the size If you are not involved in factional warfare or in a corp thats in a war, you could watch the fighting without risk, as them fighting you would cause police intervention.

The only real way to be uninvolved in a large fight elsewhere is to have a ship with a Cloaking Device fitted- it basically makes your ship invisible from visual and targetting, making it perfect for this You can't do anything while its fitted, but its great for watching!

[The Stig]

Ah thanks for the info. I enjoyed reading it.

Yep I am aware of the trial, I'm just worried 14 days isn't enough as I'll probably only be able to play 1-2 hours during weekday and maybe 4-5 on weekend. Waiting for my next chain of holidays to come up however.

In this case, one final question, or 2... .., rather newbish but I'm sure it's easily answered:

Is it possible to define ships as my "jobs" ? I can build a few/several and then "park" (store?) it in my ... er, Mog House type area? (and then work on them as I see fit). Or am I perma-glued to the ship I choose

Windowed mode? haha. Your bounty made me think that several instances of the game are possible, or that some players have a lot of "resources" in RL =p

Thanks again, I'll be looking to try it. When I do (not too long from now) do you want me to give you a buzz? Incase you get any ingame bonuses or whatnot.

[Korietsu]

Ah thanks for the info. I enjoyed reading it.

Yep I am aware of the trial, I'm just worried 14 days isn't enough as I'll probably only be able to play 1-2 hours during weekday and maybe 4-5 on weekend. Waiting for my next chain of holidays to come up however.

In this case, one final question, or 2... .., rather newbish but I'm sure it's easily answered:

Is it possible to define ships as my "jobs" ? I can build a few/several and then "park" (store?) it in my ... er, Mog House type area? (and then work on them as I see fit). Or am I perma-glued to the ship I choose

Windowed mode? haha. Your bounty made me think that several instances of the game are possible, or that some players have a lot of "resources" in RL =p

Thanks again, I'll be looking to try it. When I do (not too long from now) do you want me to give you a buzz? Incase you get any ingame bonuses or whatnot.

You can choose any ship or class of ship you want. Lets say you don't want to fly your frigate today, and hop in your cruiser. You exit from the frigate in a friendly hanger and hop into your cruiser. The frig stays in the hanger, you get to have fun in the cruiser. That's the beautiful thing. You can fly everything given enough time. As for the ships as jobs, its related to the skills you choose. To fly a given ship, you have to have the basics to fly it and what's related to it. IE. Flying a Caldari battleship requires Caldari Frig 4, Cruiser 4, and then at least Caldari Battleship 2.
Flying an interceptor (tech 2 frigate) requires the Racial Frigate 5, Evasive Maneuvering 5, etc. So in flying a ship, you're pretty much qualified to take it out of the station. However, just because you can make it move, doesn't mean that you should take it out. And only take out what you can afford to lose.

Also, there's a sort of legal RMT in this game. So people sell/buy plex to play the game for free using in game cash.

[Jotaru]

Is it possible to define ships as my "jobs" ? I can build a few/several and then "park" (store?) it in my ... er, Mog House type area? (and then work on them as I see fit). Or am I perma-glued to the ship I choose

What has already been said There are skills that affect everything equally (Rapid Firing, for instance, raises your rate of fire for any ships' turrets) as well as item-specific skills (Small Hybrid Turret increases your damage with, of course, Small Hybrids, but won't affect, say, Medium Lasers). There are also requisite skills to get into certain ships, and those skills affect your performance in those ships.

For instance:

Rifter (Minmatar frigate) requires only Minmatar Frigate skill to be at Level 3. Each level of Minmatar Frigate gives the ship 5% bonus to Small Projectile Turret damage and 7.5% bonus to tracking per level. Thus, someone who has Minm. Frig at 4 will do more damage than you would with it at level 3. You could, of course, have higher support skills (like rapid firing, or whatever) that could make you do more damage- there's hundreds of skills.

The neat thing is, it does kinda work out like 'job changing', in a sense, because there are ship 'classes'. Frigates are smaller, less skill-intensive ships than say, Cruisers, Battlecruisers, or Battleships, but each ship has different bonuses. If you want max efficiency with small guns (say, to kill small ships!) you're perhaps better off in the lowly Frigate as it gets bonuses to small guns, whereas bigger ships get bonuses to bigger guns (which may not hit a small target as easily, or at all!)

Its... I donno, its not HARD to explain, I just suck at it, lol. Different ships serve different purposes, and you can train up for any ships / weapons / modules you want. I have, for instance, Frigates built for tackling / destroying small ships, Assault Frigates built for soloing larger targets, Battlecruisers for fleet warfare that have more hitpoints and bigger guns (so they don't die as easily as a frigate), Battleships for tanking large amounts of dmg in a PVE environment... etc. Each has their own usages, and all it takes to change ships is the requisite skill, the ship in your hangar, and the thirty seconds it takes to change ships

Windowed mode: Yeah. There are always people with multiple accounts (I'm one) so, if you please, you can have an alt scout for you, or be your industrial manufacturing / sales character while your main is your combat... etc.

If you join up, you can PM me or contact me in-game (Character name Assent) and I'll help ya out. I don't get any sort of recruit-a-friend bonus, but there's a very steep learning curve to Eve, and I imagine more than one player who would have enjoyed the game has quit because they got frustrated initially / didn't understand some things.

[The Stig]

Ah, so hangar = mog house thingy... where I can park my stuff and not get it blown up/hijacked

Good good, the rest of the info makes me feel better, I like the different ships you can get hehehe, and the skills thing/level makes sense. Learning curve isn't a huge issue, I'm mature enough to take my time =D (and i'm sure it's like this on any other mmo, and there's millions of guides anyway, but the reason i asked here is to get some more realistic feedback and safer replies)

[Jotaru]

Ah, so hangar = mog house thingy... where I can park my stuff and not get it blown up/hijacked

Basically, yes, but there's not just one, its a more 'realistic' style I guess... anytime you're docked in a space station anywhere, you're in a hangar. Also along the realism thread here, if you dock Spaceship A in Station A and then fly Spaceship B to Station B, you won't be able to get in Spaceship A, because its not there. Nothing stopping you from buying / building more, or relocating though

[The Stig]

Yep, the hangar machanics I can accept, and I quite like it.

Someone on the same forum mentioned about equips changing appearances, in RPGs... is there lots of "models" in this game? i.e. if I install, say, a turrent/gun thing on my ship, would it be visible? I know there's a huge variety of parts judging from the list.

I accept there would be limitations but I'd be happy if I can look odd and get everyone to "check" me and go wtf.

[Korietsu]

Yep, the hangar machanics I can accept, and I quite like it.

Someone on the same forum mentioned about equips changing appearances, in RPGs... is there lots of "models" in this game? i.e. if I install, say, a turrent/gun thing on my ship, would it be visible? I know there's a huge variety of parts judging from the list.

I accept there would be limitations but I'd be happy if I can look odd and get everyone to "check" me and go wtf.

Yeah. There are unique gun models based on that tech level it is and what type of gun it is. IE a Tech 1 blaster(plain) vs Tech 2 blaster(flashy). However, you can't inspect other players, and missile bays don't show on the ship because of how missiles work. Generally, the color of the ship shows what tech level it is. There are tech 2 battleships, which have different paint schemes from the tech 1 battleships, etc.

[Jotaru]

What Korietsu said, but unfortunately, all t2 guns will look the same, all t1 guns will look the same... so any given ship will really only have 2-3 different looks.

Tech 3 ships (super expensive, just came out a while back) look completely different depending on what subsystems are fit, but there's really only a small handful of viable ones, so that's limited too

[The Stig]

Gotcha, oh well. I went you tubeyou to find some videos and it seems you can zoom in on a variety of levels, so I suppose you can't really see much detail unless you're zoomed in completely.

I've noticed a lot of what it seems to be grey crosses/crosshairs, on the "provoking concorde" videos (for some reason the idea of super NPC security fascinates me, the system, at least), when zoomed out a lot. Is that what happens when you zoom out a lot? In game models become "icons" (so to speak) to dictate what is going on, like an RTS's mini map feature.

Gonna see if my name is available now and try to download the massive 2GB at work instead of at home =p

[Korietsu]

Gotcha, oh well. I went you tubeyou to find some videos and it seems you can zoom in on a variety of levels, so I suppose you can't really see much detail unless you're zoomed in completely.

I've noticed a lot of what it seems to be grey crosses/crosshairs, on the "provoking concorde" videos (for some reason the idea of super NPC security fascinates me, the system, at least), when zoomed out a lot. Is that what happens when you zoom out a lot? In game models become "icons" (so to speak) to dictate what is going on, like an RTS's mini map feature.

Gonna see if my name is available now and try to download the massive 2GB at work instead of at home =p

The grey crosshairs are target locks.

I might have a 21 day trial available from my account. PM me your email and I'll see if I can get you the extended trial invite.