Sep 222013
 

CSM_LOGO

 

 

Thursday 26th September 2013 is the day that CCP will publicly announce details of the next EVE Online expansion.  This will be live streamed on the CCP Twitch channel from 20.00 UTC, hosted by the excellent CCP Guard alongside the EVE Development team. 

While you can watch this alone, discuss it on the forums, or even brave the stream chat channel, I invite you to join me on the RvB Ganked Mumble on the day to talk about the expansion & its features as they are announced by CCP.  I shall be online from 19.00 UTC for those interested in watching the announcement with me.  Additionally for those unable to use a mic, please join the RvB Ganked channel ingame to discuss the expansion at the same time.

I am hoping any available members of the CSM will be there as well.

I’ll see you all on Thursday.

Nov 172011
 

The holiday season is nearly upon us, which means plenty of beer and plenty of time for spaceships, which when combined result in hilarious explosions, and there is no better way to partake of these two wonderful gifts than an RVB Ganked roam.  Or several in a row!

Here is the program for the coming holidays:

19th November 2011 – Ganked 6: Judean People’s Front.
The theme is lasers.  Preferably on Amarrian ships, but you can stick them on whatever.

26th November 2011 – Ganked 7: Get back in that kitchen.
Anything you want to field, as long as it is battlecruiser sized or smaller.

10th December 2011 – Ganked 8: Viagra+Crucible=Penetration.
Destroyer Hulls.  Post Crucible buffs.

17th December 2011 – Ganked 9: Chesnuts roasting on an open Fire(tail).
Republic Fleet Firetails. Everywhere.

26th December 2011 – Ganked 10: Boxing Battleships.
Will we get hotdropped? (if you cant/wont fly a BS come if anything else. Id prefer BS though.)

7th January 2012 – Ganked 11: We’re going to need a bigger plane.
Battlecruisers. Tier 3 preferred.

14th January 2012 – Ganked 12: We come for our people.
Rifter hulls. Because.

21st January 2012 – Ganked 13: Quack, Quack, Quack.
Drakeswarm (and other assorted missile boats).

I will send round individual mails to the ingame mailing list “RVB Ganked” about these, as well as make posts for each on the RVB forums, and a post in the Ganked thread over on Failheap, as well as keep the RVB Ganked in-game channel updated. So guys, keep your eyes peeled, stock up on the beer and isk (isk=ships=explosions) and we will have a bloody good holiday!!!

Nov 092011
 

As part of their refocusing on the “Flying In Space” aspects of EVE Online, CCP have undertaken a beautification of the nebulae found in EVE. They are now more breathtaking than ever.  More importantly they closer you get to the regions that contain or are surrounded by these, the more imposing they are, until you are enveloped by them yourself.  Quite stunning really.

Credit to sarmatiko on youtube for the video.

Below I have images taken by myself while playing around on the test server (click for images):

Cloud Ring looking towards Verge Vendor

On the cusp of Cloud Ring

Verge Vendor from the warp

Inside Cloud Ring

What Region is this? (Seen from Fountain)

On the edge of Delve, I can see Verge Vendor and ??

A closer look at the other region as seen from the cusp of Delve

It appears closer in Querious:

Space right out in Delve, Querious & Period Basis, is often so dark:

The Galactic Rim? Or something else?

Approaching Omist from Feythabolis

Getting closer via Tenerifis:

So pretty

Moving towards hisec space in Immensea

Catch, really has some amazing views:

Views from Khanid space:

Heading towards Domain

Domain Dominates the local skies

The greatness of the Empire lights up Kor-Azor Prime:

Amarr, centre of the Empire:

Lonetrek, from The Citadel

Lonetrek, Too much Blue for this Red to like

Back in Null, and I have this region to find

Still not found it yet, however this Nebulae looks amazing:

Looking at Lonetrek from Metropolis

Metropolis, this is a home for a Red!

Fire & Ice

Inside Perrigen Falls:

Genesis, was largely unimpressive (I expected a huge EVE Gate related nebulae), however it was surrounded by:

New Eden, the place where it all began:

The EVE Gate, in all its shining glory

After 450+ Jumps, 8hrs roaming around EVE on SISI, I feel that is enough.  I have seen and flown thru many of the new nebulae and the following regions:

Syndicate, Placid, Cloud Ring, Fountain, Delve, Querious, Period Basis, Paragon Soul, Esoteria, Feythabolis, Omist, Tenerifis, Immensea, Catch, Khanid, Tash-Murkon, Domain, The Citdael, The Forge, Lonetrek, Vale of the Silent, Tribute, Branch, Tenal, Venal, Fade, Pure Blind, Black Rise, Great Wildlands, Metropolis, Cache, Geminate, Kalevala Expanse, Perrigen Falls, Outer Passage, The Spire, Essence, Everyshore, Genesis.

Although many, many more remain to be discovered, however I shall keep those for when these wonderful additions go live on TQ, and endeavour to take Ganked to visit them all!

Oct 262011
 

Over the years that I played EVE I have seen CCP achieve some brilliant things with this game, making it really enjoyable to play.  However some 18 months ago, if not earlier than that, they seemed to start down a road that took them away from their core product, and what it is really about for the majority of EVE’s subscribers, towards a vision they had of an EVE that encompassed so much more than “mere spaceships”.  In doing so they began alienating the “spaceship” fans, all – in my opinion – to grab a share of the generic MMO market by offering such things as full body avatars, and things related to these as found in those generic MMOs. I lost a large amount of the faith I had in CCP, so much so that i sold off characters from my stable and let other accounts go inactive, bringing myself down to 1 active account.

A result of this, over the 18months or so that they were obviously focusing away from EVE, was a substantial drop in subscriptions, a major drop in PCU numbers and even more anger on various forums than normal, quite a feat considering how vitriolic eve related forums usually are.  Player dissatisfaction really came to a head with the Incarna expansion in the summer of this year, which saw the first iteration of full body avatars added to the EVE experience, along side a VERY controversial micro (I know!) transaction store. There was much rage, and the largest sub and PCU drops to date.

This seemed to wake CCP up, and slowly, very slowly over the summer they began to make noises about refocusing on their core product, their golden goose, EVE.  This culminated in a number of things:

  • An “apology” from Hilmar;
  • CCP making some staff redundant, and moving focus away from 3 products to 2;
  • A winter expansion, that promises a large amount of changes and fixes to the core product;
  • New ships, specifically chosen from some contests last year.  The info on these is to be released weekly over the coming weeks. The first is the Tornado.

All in all, this turnabout is very welcome to me personally, as a 5+ year veteran of EVE, and as someone who has followed the game much longer than that, it saddened me to see the product go ignored/have half done content thrown at it, like it did. I cannot say CCP has restored all the faith I had in them, but they are doing a good job of it.  I am sure that with enough time, and the items listed above are a good beginning, that they will reclaim the faith of many more people, and I hope that this is only the earliest days of a glorious resurgence of EVE.