Low Sec Lifestyle

Sugar Kyle > I've been obsessively helping the latest wave of newbies Veteran Player > problem is they need to find all the stupid things by themselves Veteran Player> the same way we did, or they will just be guided along Sugar Kyle > most of the help is figuring out the UI and how to find things Sugar Kyle > like the right click menu Sugar Kyle > we can ignore all of them and make them figure it out or leave Sugar Kyle > or we can let them know a right click menu exists I wanted to make a flow chart. I spent about two hours inside Google Documents using their drawing template to make spreadsheets. What I discovered is that so much of the information crossed referenced itself that I had no idea how to turn it into a comprehensible flow chart. Skills are not as linear as they seem. Controlled Bursts for example only effect hybrid and laser weapons because projectiles are capless. Support skills don't have to be learned, even for some capital class ships

It is one week before the Rhea release and five since Phoebe. Eve’s been interesting this week. CCP Falcon posted policy changes to the EULA regarding multi-broadcasting and input modification.  This has been an interesting piece of information to sit on as I've recently read and listened to people say that there was no way CCP would ever stop this practice in its playerbase. Many people broke this down into ‘isboxer is banned’. It isn’t quite that cut and dry. However, what is banned are the days of 100 man mining fleets controlled with one key click and bombing fleets controlled in the same way. Isboxer is used for client optimization and that will still be acceptable. The issue with the program, and why its called out in particular although it is not the only multiboxing client on the market, was the advantage it gave. It was a topic that was often brought forward to the CSM and I have firmly been on the side that the multi broadcasting/input software needed to go. During th

The Pod and Planet Contes t has five days left. We have one more weekend people. Finish up! I'm trying to get my second entry done this weekend. I hopefully will make it, I'm okay with not. In the previous years I have submitted multiple stories. This year, this month has been busy and my creative energy hasn't been there. I did write the story that I wanted to write the most. I'm pleased with that. When it comes to fiction and the lore of Eve, the star is getting brighter. I've been taking pictures every day. What this leads up to? I don't know. CCP hasn't shared. However, a news story came out yesterday noting the sudden appearance. I've been watching twitter, the forums, and reddit. I'm amused at how some of the old lore folk are treating the people suddenly interested as if they are leaf peepers . I think healthy interest in the lore is important for Eve's over all health. While we may make and play our own games, the world li

What am I? Am I corruption? I seem to corrupt all that I touch. It does not seem to offend people but it is a strange trail that I leave in my wake. Hello, bittervet corp.  I am Sugar.  I like newbies. I wandered back into rookie chat after work today. I've been out of it for two days. I figured that with most of the USA that is not me having today off, it would be a good day to drop in and see how the channel was doing. The population was a bit over two thousand and the text was a lot slower. We're able to have more complete conversations and there are many who are now four or five days old and stretching their wings. Strange things go full circle. Vadeim is back in my life and now in my alliance. I notice him feeling guilty in alliance chat. He has killed and podded a day old player. Tyler convos said newbie and sends him to my channel. Before I can talk to him he bails from my channel and leaves Tyler's conversation. Now, I like trying to help people

I've been thinking a lot about how to describe Eve at its current point. Some of that comes from the flood of new players coing tot ehj game. They will never know pre-phobe teleportation mechanics. Five light years will be normal for them. And with one change a new generation of players are born to Eve. They will never have played during battlecruisers online. Dominion sov is a legend to them. The fall of bOB will be archaic history. Their world has always had the Venture, a compass, and an unlimited skill queue. Most will never experience a clone upgrade. Change is not bad. Change is just change. Plo sent out a mail that he is closing  Galactic  Hauling Solutions. With the Phoebe changes it is just not attainable for him to keep up a competitive, smaller, low sec focused jump freighter service.  Plo and I talked during the Phoebe changes. I hoped that what would happen to ease logistics would be enough for him to keep his smaller group running. I also knew that it might not be

I basically flushed 500 mil down the toilet with a market mistake and went, "Huh. Ah well," and moved on with my life. I had typoed an order a few days ago and someone got a heavily discounted hull or two. It is a reminder to slow down. I'm sometimes surprised that I manage to do well with my markets considering the constant mistakes that I make. It is my own fault. The window looks correct but a few (as in three) zeros are missing sometimes. I often discuss how fun and satisfying the market is. Sometimes, it is just a lot of work. When I have everything running along, nicely balanced, it is mostly effortless. When that balance tips and the market derails, getting it moving again is a lot of work that is not so much fun. For instance. Three months seems like a long time. It really does. Only, it is not. Not with market orders like I put up. Three months is a change in the meta. It is the summer. It is a time when everyone armor tanks instead of shield tanks. It is the

Just in case anyone has worried that I've become glued to my machine, I took Sleipnir out on a ride today. The weather was amazing for late November and I had some errands to run. There is supposedly a snow storm on the way so it seems to be pushing a warm front before it. The weather was 75/23c and beautifully clear. Later, my husband came home early from work and we walked across the street to have dinner and enjoy the weather because supposedly it will be a snow hellscape in a few days. View off my back deck this afternoon. Then I came home and played Eve. The CTA is going well. The invasion of vets into rookie chat has continued. We're being allowed to stay if we are productive. This has been great. Questions are getting fielded rapid fire. We're dragging people into private conversations and hand walking them through their problems. I love the right click menus. I use them all of the time. I've tried many times to use hte radial menu and I wind up slow an

 Dhonray Fernandez > im so lost... The above is from Rookie chat as I write this. That has been a very common theme for the last two days. To recap what has been going on, on Friday, CCP released Eve's latest trailer which has been quite the sensation. In less then 48 hours it saw over a million views. Articles have flown everywhere. I'm sure it was a mixture of the media bomb a game company sets out and the fact that the trailer is amazing and just saturated gaming communities all over the place. Reddit has been on fire. People are flocking to Eve and that is not just the random squeals of a fangirl. Now with all of these people interested in Eve we need to get them to stay. Peaks like this happen whenever we make it to the news. Most try it and then leave. Well, this time the newbie supporting community has come out in arms. It was a CTA to rookie assistance. The main page of /r/eve is newbie advice. CCP has done a CTA it seems with developers flooding rookie

It does not feel that long ago that I was writing CSM9 - Day 7, and starting this project of documenting my time on the CSM. This week has been a quiet one for me. A good bit of that is my fault. I was in a class for work all week and then work on Saturday. That all limited my time on Skype and caused me to miss one of our meetings. I spent the evenings catching up. Fortunately, some interesting things have happened. Eve Down Under happened this weekend. There was a keynote with several interesting bits. They revealed a new in game mapping system. Joystick support has been moved up to the ‘should be coming’ point, and a new trailer was released. The new player sourced trailer is excellent . As a player it makes me go, “Hell yes!” Non players have been reacting well to it. It is technical enough to echo the game but clear and emotional enough to catch people. The assumption from non-players that this is acted scripts has been soundly squashed by Eve players as they come across it. I

Ahh, the trailer! What a buzz it has stirred. I've spent some time on Reddit answering questions. I have done the same the last few times we have made a stir there. I also, deeply enjoy writing out the concepts and visualizations to people who have not played. It may come as a surprise, but I do enjoy writing about the game. I've also started a side kick account so that I can spend some time for the next few weeks in Rookie chat helping. Back on Reddit, the comments are full of people who make negative remarks. Spreadsheets in space. It sounds more fun then it is. It is 99% boring. I disagree with that and instead of telling people that they are wrong I just tell them what they are missing by believing that. There is also the fact that Eve is full of lingo that does not make sense. So, I decided to answer some questions and attempt to break Eve down into plain language. My goal was to try to capture some of the game and structure for the game. It has a ton of holes and i

War Decs: An Incomplete Triangle War Decs: I'm Sorry That I Hurt You I am introducing a new tool into this discussion. The comments have been a great ground for discussion but I'd like to expand this a bit more. I have gone to Steve who has gotten our 'things' websites together using SSO for authorization. I've asked him to give me a war dec subsection . These are things that I, the CSM, and CCP can see and read the results on and you the player can write and vote on. Comments are wonderful for discussion but as we move towards the Winter Summit in January, I plan to drag this topic kicking and screaming along. I'd like you all to come with me. This is the third post in my open, crowd sourced, discussion about war decs. From how it looks to me, as I've worked through Eve's history, the early days of Eve's development where geared towards war and the concept of space battles and players fighting each other as the focus of the game. The first si

Time. It is the most powerful force in the game. Over this last week, I have had little of it. I've been in a class to become certified on the state level as an instructor. I had my presentation today and I'm rather worn out. It is a good class. I'm not fond of public speaking or being on stage. However, I'm comfortable with doing it and my presentations tend to go well. I do the smart thing and stick to subjects that I like. I was amused that I was able to tolerate watching and listening to myself during the review with the instructor much better then normal. After watching ten hours of myself talking and sitting on camera from the summit meetings, I have finally developed a tolerance for both my voice and appearance. I still think I sound funny. But, I am tired. I have been 'off duty' to some extent this weekend. I've focused on eve mails and keeping up with what is going on. I'm not going on fleets. It is eight in the evening and I'm ready to

I'll come whine here about how terribly hard my life is. Utter trauma follows. Just terribleness. If I can recover from this intense woe and the bitter luck it will be a surprise. I had everything so perfectly timed. I would light the cyno, do two jumps with my jump freighter and go and make dinner. There was myself and someone else in local. Then, as I eat I can stock Bosena which is well over due. I've been shipping things down there for a week but I've not gone down and stocked. Instead, I've been negligent and using my free time to be in fleets and work on some other projects instead. Things where going pretty well. I had forgotten that I had shipped stuff down. Two trips would still cover it all. I got my jump freighter loaded in one window. In the other, I got Haibi loaded and ready to go. I undocked, warped off, and warped back to my cyno spot. As I did that, I undocked the Rhea. Once landed, I lit my cyno and went to jump my Rhea. Cyno not found. What? I

It is the season for corporation change. Several blogs have popped up of late regarding social groups in Eve. Susan Black wrote a lovely one focused on how we need more types of social groups. Mangala has written a bout this as well with a focus on third party communities such as the NPSI (Not Purple Shoot It) community. I've chatted about social clubs, a topic similar to Mangala's in that it would bring people another sticky social group that they could be proud of. I think there was a time when the idea of a secondary, lesser type group to a corporation would have seemed redundant. However, Eve's social game has evolved. The age of the game has evolved us. Some players have friendships over a decade long. Paths, interests, and lives have diverted but the friendship has stayed the same. When I first started playing, Ender introduced me to THC2s private chatroom. It was not corp chat it was larger then that. Previous members, friends from the start of the game, and

A year ago, on November 17th, 2013 I stole a Proteus . I wrote the story. 7-2 had deployed to Solitude/Syndicate and I was doing the interceptor thing for our Ishtar fleet. This Proteus derped into us and the pilot ejected, leaving the hull. Being the interceptor in the Ishtar fleet, I got to grab it. Not a single thing on it was expensive. I was fresh with my T3 skills. I had learned them just to learn them having little want to fly T3. I've always loved frigates for their agility. Without a hunger for DPS or an interest in doing top damage, I happily took on the role of tackle. I knew that I had a use in the fleet, my ship was fast, and I utterly enjoyed the game play. Yesterday, on November 16th, 2014, I lost that stolen Proteus in combat. I was taking damage and decided to be a bit stupid and not warp out when I should have. I might have saved myself. I might not of. I was rather disappointed with my poor decision making in that situation. This would be the second time

Some days, niceness is a soothing balm. I've flown more in the last few days then I have in months. My local window is firmly minimized and I've decided that the 'clear content' option would be perfect if I didn't have to have the chat window open to access it. Watching someone get help without any belittlement was nice. There was no, "What is that fit?" comments. No one told them that they where wrong and that they should fly something else that they did not want to fly. Instead, the time was taken to figure out how to get that person into a better position. Said person was a player coming back after being gone from the game for two years. His Armageddon was no longer the ship he had once flown. He did not have the skills for what was now a drone boat. He was not a PvPer interested in its abilities as a baby Bhaalgorn. Nor did he have much in the way of ISK to buy another ship. He was trying to solve his own problem with what he had. I very much enjoy

CCP Seagull continues to release dev blogs bundling up what is coming in the next release . This week was not limited to just her dev blog. Several blogs where released for Rhea as well as topics discussed. I’ll again point to the fact that the UI changes are live on Sisi. There are some known bugs such as the fact that the right click menu can be invisible on lower video settings. CCP is not going to maintain the old UI in line with the new UI . While they have started beta testing and giving players the ability to opt out of features, this is not going to be one of them. There is a transparency slider in the works. The testing is also being based around the minimum specified graphics card abilities . What is not popular is the limitations to the color schemes. The ones listed are pretty for those who care for them. However, a broad pallet of UI themes are used by people for many reasons and removing that bit of personalization takes away from a player's experience. This is a

"The Reason" I'm not a perfect person There's many things I wish I didn't do But I continue learning I never meant to do those things to you And so I have to say before I go That I just want you to know Last Tuesday, I started a conversation about war decs called, "The Incomplete Triangle".  I've since renamed it to " War Decs: The Incomplete Triangle " and added a label for ease of research, later. This is a continuation where I am attempting to wrap things up and move forward before we talk ourselves into circles. I feel that I am  attacking a topic that is to large for me alone. I'm okay with that. I'd distrust myself if I climbed on the stage and said that I had solved something this intricate with a few days of thought. It may be to large for those that I reach out to. But, I cannot help but feel that serious discussion needs to happen about the war declaration system and what we do with it in Eve. And, it is m

I'm running one of these at 1500 (thirty minutes from this post) and another at 2200 GMT. They are on Eve Uni Public Mumber.   mumble.eveuniversity.org:64739 and in Lecture.E-UNI chat in the game. I also advertise in twitter and in game. These are not serious things. Just some time to sit down and chat.

A Conscious Choice  Written for the Eight Thousand Suns in New Eden catagory Pod and Planet Fiction Contest YC116 I am the destroyer of lives and a savior of humanity. Each day I throw away basic human decency and shatter the souls of other people. I rip their very souls from them and I do this at their request. I am a monster convinced of the greater good. Is one person more important than another? Is it an individual’s choice to destroy themselves or my responsibility to save them? Can I tell someone that they cannot sacrifice themselves for those they love the most? Should I? I am a monster. -Luka Pellan I looked at the mural that covered the waiting room wall. The letters were graceful curves of white against the vibrant blue glow of a plasma planet deep in the velvet black of the Great Wildlands. It was as beautiful as it was morbid and it covered the entire back of the waiting room wall. The only thing that marred it was the simple, white door in the lower left corner