samroski

My time in Eve for the last 3 years has been sporadic. I would log in for a few days every 2-3 months and generally do one or more of the following activities: 1. Firework displays outside Jita, and at times outside Amsen (my birth station). I have been buying fireworks (among other items) for years using regional buy orders, and I have thousands/millions of every kind. I have a fleet of ships at Jita with 6-8 festival launchers each, filled with fireworks, ready to go at all times. In recent years CCP have introduced some great fireworks and my impulsive displays are legendary imho. 2. Setting up scores of courier contracts aimed at newish players, to collect items from all over the galaxy and transport to Jita (frequently via other hubs). I have items and ships in every station (thanks to regional buy orders), and I love interacting with couriers. I reward them well and frequently give bonuses and replace their ships/losses (low sec work). I don't really need the items I collect, but it creates interesting gameplay for me and it gives me great satisfaction providing work opportunities for capsuleers with entry level ships (these contracts are generally low volume). 3. Trade PVP, where I set up large buy orders at Jita for items I need, and overcut (is this a word?) other traders by large margins, over a longish period of time. Also use sell orders, at times concurrently with buy orders, with healthy undercutting. This creates hilarious situations at times, as I can push people to the extreme. They either break, or end in loss, or the market collapses (for less popular items), or I get what I want, at a rate still better than buying off sell orders. The cost of these items does not really matter as my trade margins are huge (>100%), but tears are invaluable. 4. Level 4 missions. I have a number of ships set up for pve, and I have been testing them, trying the newer modules, and trying different fitting strategies with newer slot layouts and newer missions. I love the fact that rigs are not destroyed when removed! This is revolutionary, and should have been there since day 1. To think of the rigs I have destroyed over the years... The market for rigs must have taken a hit when the change was introduced, but I missed it. I'm currently playing around with my tengu layout, as I somehow now have 6 low slots. I tried the Golem a few months ago, and it was super-effective, but the micromanagement necessary for efficiency got to me after a while (painful to even talk about), and thus I'm currently flying the tengu where I push one button and it kills the bugger. With my rekindled interest in missions, I was reminded of the time in Journey's End (8 years ago) where we had great fun doing group missions. On an impulse I made Sam Roski (my alt) CEO of Games Inc., left the corp, and am now looking to join a corp with some decent people who like doing missions.

I recently tried Eve again, and it was great fun. Lots to catch up on. I like the Alpha clones, as they suit my style of trading where I set up orders for 3 months and do not monitor/modify. I thus use my omega clone sparingly. I tried some L4 missions in my trusty tengu, which was fun. The slot layout has changed, and I had fun trying to max. out DPS. It is great that rigs are no longer destroyed on removing and you can play around with the fit more freely. My main current interest in game is fireworks (the newer ones are brilliant). I may frequently be found outside Jita firing away at anyone who pauses (mostly gankers). Am leaving for a 6 week vacation, thus unlikely to catch you in game soon. Fly safe!

Updating this blog after 3.5 years. The first 2 years were spent doing industry and trade. I found a great corp mate, who took over research and manufacturing tasks. Our POS was running 24/7 and we manufactured vast amounts of T2 goods, and some T1 stuff, and shipped it in our freighters to trade hubs in Amarr and Caldari space. We made many billions. More importantly, I had the opportunity to spend time with a great human being. He joined the corp as a trade apprentice (the apprenticeship program) and got really good at what we do. He had interest in industry, so I made him a director in the corp, giving him access to corp blueprints and our POS, and we never looked back. Eventually we had had enough and called it a day. Our share from liquidation of left over dregs from manufacturing was about 20b each. The corp retained a large number of fully researched BPOs and thousands of BPCs. I lost my way in Eve at this point. Fortunately a couple of PLEX for Good drives gave me direction. I had managed a fund for this purpose for many years, and had kept reinvesting the money. Somehow this did not seem enough, so I liquidated everything I had and donated. Starting from scratch was interesting. I started with buy orders at Jita for the really cheap meta 4 stuff, and for selected cheap lower meta items. Each of these items I sold for just under a million. This got me back on my feet pretty quickly, and I could contribute significantly to the next PLEX for Good drive. The one item that I did not want to liquidate at a throwaway price was my sole T2 BPO. I came into possession of this item by pure luck. I had been following T2 BPOs in the Sell Orders forum for a while, but they had taken a recent hike in prices putting them out of my reach. I suddenly noticed someone offering a cruise missile BPO for 9b. This was a steal, as the current price was at least 12b, more like 15. Unfortunately I had no money as I had recently invested with a friend from MD (Market Discussions forum). A few minutes later I got a message from the friend returning 10b of the investment for a reason I do not recall. So I typed in an 8.2b bid in the auction, knowing that I would not be able to keep up with the bidding later on, as auction end was 10 hours away. A couple of minutes later I received an in-game message from the seller asking me if I was good for the money. He was somewhere near the edge of the galaxy and was making his way to high sec. I was on tender hooks for the next half an hour, but there was no activity on the forums. The seller set up a public contract for the BPO in Lonetrek, and I scrambled from Jita to Sobaseki to accept it. The seller then spent half an hour giving me advice on how to use and take care of the BPO. This made me feel real bad. I did not have the heart to inform him of his folly, let alone rub it in. So I immediately decided to give half proceeds from the eventual sale of the BPO to charity. But my attempts (1, 2) at selling the BPO for PLEX drives were not successful. Since then I have learned that copying T2 missile BPOs costs (next-to) nothing, so I've been churning out max run fully researched copies for a while, which by now could serve the needs of a generation of Eve players. It may be worth mentioning that I tried some null-sec trade using an alt. I first managed to get a ship full of blueprints to an NPC station in Venal where I set up orders for minerals and got T1 manufacturing going. This infiltration was successful at the 2nd attempt. The first ship, full of tons of blueprints, was lost tragically at M-OEE8. I had scouted this area in 2010, and there is a blog for those who are interested. The recent entries are from 2013 when I took in the blueprints, and later got Blag Frog to freighter in stuff for trade. Made a fair bit of money, which also eventually went to PLEX for Good.

CCP have started a new recall program where accounts that have not been active for more than 6 months can avail of one week of free game time. You can avail the offer by using this link. In case you activate your account, please let me know, as I will receive some goodies which I'll send to you. The goodies include PLEX. Have fun!

Started a new blog a couple of days ago: Sisters of EVE Epic Mission Arc Experience Check it out and give some feedback!

I'm running two initiatives to gather funds for PLEX for Good: Philippines Typhoon Relief. T2 BPO Auction - the higher the bids, the more goes to charity Multiple Items Sale - lets player donate amounts less than the value of a PLEX to the program. Please help by buying the stuff and/or letting others know.

You may know that buddy invites no longer work like that. Previously you got free game time, and in my previous offer, I was giving a PLEX to anyone who activated their accounts. Currently CCP gives you items other than PLEX or game time (I am not sure exactly what), and I am again offering all of these to anyone who activates their account. I have enough funds to PLEX my 12 accounts for years to come, if need be. I am not interested in free game time as you imply. I just want people to try Eve, as I think it is a great game.

Eve's going to be 10 soon. I've been playing just over 5 years. Seems like yesterday. Intend to play on. How long have you all been playing? How much longer do you intend to play? For the anniversary, I am pleased to offer fireworks and a festival launcher to all Nexians. Please post the name of your Eve character in this thread and I'll set up a contract for you. By default the contracts are likely to be set up in Lonetrek, though I've been buying fireworks and launchers all over the galaxy, and if you have a region preference please indicate.

ib4 Vindekarr adds "disgraceful community" to the cons :smile: I disagree with the following Pros: Always improving content - some "expansions" make you feel that this is not true :smile: I disagree with the following Cons: Too much space, not enough players - I feel totally the opposite. I want 100x the space. 1000x would be better. Too many players where I don't want them. Space Police (Gah... but I wanna kill that merchant ship!) - you can still kill the ship with the police around. Not solo though, for anything bigger than a hauler. Most haulers you should be able to solo kill quite easily in high sec. You'll take a security hit, of course. Grind - heh heh. I suppose the game demands some time/grind towards the beginning. For me, making a new account self sufficient takes about 6 weeks of training and 6-8 hours of play time. The account then earns enough to PLEX itself and make a tidy profit with about 4-6 hours of "grind" a month Heavily Advantaged Veteran Players - but this does not curtail your enjoyment of the game. I use low skill alts for a lot of fun in Eve. Am currently playing a new character in null sec, and cannot get enough of it. One of my RvB alts got his first 3 kills after a day and a half of training, and I had just as much fun playing him as my 5 year old alt. I am the wrong person to give you any further specific advice, as I'm hopelessly addicted to the game.

If you keep a close watch on your drones, you should have little issues with drone management. The Drake still has a great tank, thus good for relatively new players with low skills- as you can take the ship into level 4 missions, or other tight situations, and survive. The damage output is obviously lower, which is unlikely to appeal to more experienced players. It is interesting that your corp leader's statement is exactly the reason why (CCP feel) the nerf was needed. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the Drake and the Tengu needed the nerf, not heavy missiles. Anyway, CCP want that there should be no, one, hands down best ship around. There are 100s of ships in Eve and their goal is to have the classes balanced. This is a massive and very complicated undertaking, thus CCP has my empathy- and a lot of toes will be stepped on in the process (especially mine). The latest iteration of rebalancing is midway. All ships in the game are being rebalanced, and the process will take another year or so. Change is inevitable, no matter how we feel about it. Adapt or die :)

Good you re-subbed :) I forgot to mention that there have been a number of drone changes as well. Think initially they increased the drone bay for some ships- but the recent drone changes have been related to the NPC AI changes. Now NPCs allegedly switch targets (like Sleepers) and drone management is allegedly harder. Also to note: there are now salvage drones, which is probably a great addition to PvE. I've also been using the new mining frigate (Venture) for some ninja mining in 0.0, and it is a fun ship. The best part is that it has +2 warp core strength- thus you can mostly get away when attacked :) Have also been using the new Caldari destroyer (Corax) with 7 festival launchers to spray fireworks on all and sundry at station exits. The (new) fireworks are quite good- and you can safely fire at anyone without repercussions :)

They obviously thought that HMs were too powerful. Thus 10% reduction in damage - plus 25% reduction in range. This nerf has led directly to me abandoning my Tengus. In fact they basically indirectly nerfed the Tengu and Drake- those being the 2 very popular ships relying on HMs. Unfortunately all the other Caldari ships that use HMs were also inadvertently nerfed- whereas they needed to be buffed. No chance of anyone ever using them now. The idea that my missions would be 10% slower (the range nerf did not bother me too much), made me try the Golem as an alternative. In fact they have buffed torpedoes slightly (by letting rigs effect the explosion radius)- but after the tengu- all other ships are crap- and now the tengu's crap as well. Thus I was never into PvE, and now there is even lesser chance of doing any.... Edit: I love Eve, and think you should re-sub immediately Edit 2: There have been lots of other changes- like bounties and new ships (mostly destroyers). Also: major skill tree changes are due in the summer- and thus you should re-sub and immediately train Battlecruisers and Destroyers to V (you'll get like 6m extra skill points when the change happens)

The NPC AI has been improved recently, and heavy missiles have been nerfed. Not sure if PvE is any better, as I do not do much PvE. Vindekarr does not play Eve nowadays, so his views may be a little outdated, though probably correct :)

Why don't you play it like a single player game? Just don't look at (minimize) the chat channels- and it plays like a single player experience. I've done that many times for months at a time.

I respect your views V, as I've followed your torrid times in Eve. I disagree about the pure PvP part, as there are many other options (boring as they may seem to you). The vast majority of my time is spent in other activities. You could classify trading as market pvp, in which case I do it all the time :) I agree about CCP not having vision. I was at the forefront of the riots at Jita. I still don't like their current "vision". I hate nerfs myself. To the core. Totally share your sentiments about large number of ships not being used. CCP is in the process of rebalancing- and they've done the frigates and some cruisers, with all the other ships in queue. Not sure how it will end up, though. The recent heavy missile nerf made me stop using the Tengu, which used to be my favourite ship. I have discovered the Golem though. Ganking, btw, is the new thing in Eve. I quite like it in the overall scheme of things. There was a gank attempt recently at my (heavily pimped) Golem, and that was fun! Eve community is crazy, no doubt, and as I have said before, you seem to have come across the worst examples. My 2 best friends in Eve happen to be Nexians and that probably helped. We started around the same time, in one corp (with just ourselves) and that was great. After a couple of years we went our own ways, and found some great corps and had a lot of fun, and continue to do so.

Eve is an extremely complex game, thus it is difficult to summarize. The best way to find out is to do the 3 week free trial and see for yourself. Three weeks is enough to get a flavour of the game, though there will still be 100s of aspects that will stay unexplored. As far as worth paying for monthly is concerned- this is something subjective. I've been playing for 5 years and for me it is a way of life. An alternate existence that I spend a lot of time thinking about. Eve is not a quick fix (though it may be used as such e.g. doing missions), and it is deep involvement in the alternate reality that makes it worthwhile (for me).

Please note: freelancer did not inspire Eve. Elite inspired both Freelancer and Eve. As to which game is better, I cannot compare as I have not played freelancer with crossfire.

Note: if you avail this buddy invite, and subsequently activate your account, I will receive some item/items from CCP. Not sure what these will be, but I will be delighted to give these items to you as a present on joining the Eve community. Thus: when you activate your account, please let me know so I can send you the item/items.

The Buddy invite system has recently changed in Eve, and now anyone can avail a 3 week free trial by going to this link Have fun!

This offer is no longer valid ref: dev blog Good while it lasted. Too good to last. I took full advantage of this loophole while it existed, but all good things come to an end.

No idea about character prices. Your best bet may be the Price Check forum. If you are not able to post there, I can post for you.

Hmmmm probably time to invest in some HAM stuff.... Got the try the 100mn ab tengu!

Doesn't appear if anyone from here is entering. Think the number of PLEXes that you need for registration is prohibitive enough to exclude most casual gamers.

Plex prices are going to plummet soon. CCP has addressed this issue in a dev blog yesterday, and eve is being patched today with changes that are intended to help reduce the price. The price was already down to 570 when I checked earlier today. So there is hope :)

Looking at the vision of this game, it makes you wonder why some of the ideas are already not in Eve. It may be more difficult to actually achieve than envision, but if they manage to do it, Eve will have serious competition. I believe the way forward is for MMOs to let players mod the game (within limits), so that the mods are immediately playable in-game by all. You need to have a crafting system, where things are built up from smaller bits. Totally achievable. There could be limit to how much a player can mod- possibly no. of polygons or based on skill level. Makes me want to make an MMO!