How To Vote: Remember, voting starts today and ends early Wednesday, after which I will tally the votes and post the winner. To vote, just post a comment on this post with the number screenshot that you like. One vote please. And yes, contestants may vote for themselves!

#1

This one is from Kirith Kodachi, winner from the last contest. It’s his Nomad Jump
freighter mid-warp.

#2

#2 is from Tony over at Eve’s Weekend Warrior. I haven’t seen anything like this
before so I’m guessing this is from one of his recent wormhole adventures.

#3

#3 is from Xiphos83 over at The Misguided Adventurer. Ittys never looked so good.

Vote away!

Podcasts: WTF? Where have all the Podcasts gone? Hopefully Blinky and Urban are working on one! Actually, I’ve been toying with the idea of putting together a podcast of either just myself going over news and commentary or a group of people. Right now I’m working on researching means of recording and editing then working on planning out the format. With no regular podcasts I think it would be worth a shot.

Dev Blogs: Slow week here as well, though with very good reason. The Devs were hard at work prior to the patch and of course post-patch dealing with bugs and such. Not suprising that they haven’t had much free time to pump out new posts.

Forum Highlights:
The UI is increasingly shambolic: This poster makes some valid points about the UI. I think their next expansion should really focus on improving stability and usability. Right now they are just adding features onto a system that has some serious issues at times.

are assault frigs viable solo and small group pvp?: I actually commented on this one. Was thinking the same thing myself. Like with any ship you need to be sure you can dictate the engagement before engaging. In essence, you need to know you can win more so with a t2 frig considering the cost.

Blog Highlights:
Its Oh So Quiet – Wensley: Love these detailed pvp engagements. Can always picture then in your head.

EvE Mags First Lottery:

So I’m sure I peaked your interest when I mentioned corp drama. I’ve been running my own corp for a few months now and everything was going splendidly until we moved out to the Great Wildlands. Now Vanguard (the alliance we are in) has been awesome. Lots of industrial and PvP opportunities for those who have the ambition and drive to take the bull by the horns. We had some initial problems with the move and a bit of a burnout on my end of things with having to mine enough ice to fuel the damn thing. My biggest mistake was starting with a large tower for a corp of our size. A medium or small would have done fine. Other than that things seemed to be fine.

A couple of weeks ago it becomes apparent that my executive director’s ego has swelled to the size of an avatar. He quickly asserts himself as being allmightly and never wrong. He asks to run for CEO which I help him do. His main reasons for being pissed off was not having full director rights in the corp, something I don’t give to anyone because of past experiences with corp theft. He spends the next three days talking to each person in the corp and convincing them to leave and form with him. And of course I log in on the 4th day and the wallets and hangars of the corp are completely empty. Needless to say I wasn’t too happy, but releived in a way that I now know he is a 100% asshole. His last few minutes on the alliance vent server were spent inflating his own ego. All in all about half of the corp left.

We are in the process of restructuring and are already recruiting. I personally have billions in liquid cash so money for the corp is not a problem. I’m 100% sure we will be fine and its nice not dealing with peoples needs and egos on a daily basis now. We are more of a relaxed corp now and I now have a Zero tolerance policy for egos. I have played this game long enough not to have to deal with people like that. The funny thing is the people that left are now in high sec. Looking at the Alliance killboard it seems that most of them were having a hard time out here and just couldn’t cut it. One lost a Myrm and Hulk over the period of a couple of days…..to belt rats. It’s been a rough couple of drama filled weeks and thats partly why I haven’t been blogging much but thats about to change. Thanks for those of you who keep checking back. Good stuff to come!

Screenshot Wednesday Contest #2 We had a few contestents last time. Submission period will be a bit longer this time around. Remember, submissions are due Sunday evening. Voting starts on Monday and the winner will be announced Wednesday. The prize? 15 million isk. If participation keeps up then prizes will get better and better. Hopefully we will see some great screenshots! Past winners are eligable to enter. Send entries to nickdgdm[at]yahoo.com

articles at the bottom of this post!

When I first started playing I quickly realized how difficult it would be to keep my pvp character in a ship considering the sheer number of ship losses one will amass both learning and practicing PvP. Within my first couple of months I created my second account, a mining alt. Over the months it’s been both a god send and a bane having two accounts.

For one, it doubles the cost of play. Having and paying for two accounts truly turns Eve into a hobby more than just a casual game. Second, the cost to actually train that character up can be quite expensive. To simply get that character in a Hulk with T2 fits will run over 250+mil with the cost of the ship, learning books for both the exhumer and learning skills, and implants to train faster.

You have to ask yourself if there are certain professions in this game that just plain flat out require two accounts to work and be fun. Take capital pilots for instance. Do you really want to trust someone with creating a cyno field for you to jump or have to wait for them to show up and hope they do it right? Most Cap pilots I know have a cyno alt who’s only job is to creaty cyno fields they way the Cap pilot wants. Then of course there are pirates and pvpers. Many whom I know have alts that trade or mine, just to keep the isk flowing in for those inevitable losses. Many second accounts are the result of players who are 3-8 months into the game who realize they didn’t optimize their current characters attributes when creating it and now are suffering with training time and maybe spending to much time not focusing on their profession. This happens to many new players who just don’t know what everything means when they are in that character creation system for the first time. They don’t want to give up their current character due to the simple fact that they have SOME SP at least so they create a second account and skill up a new character the right way.

There are a number of reasons to have an alt, but there are certainly many people who don’t. Many casual players just find it overkill and would much rather spend their time and isk on bettering their main character.

Is it meta-gaming? I’m not sure. There are those who beleive that it’s unfair. But in reality, like I stated above, some professions gain a lot from having another account. CCP seems to have no stance on the subject, though having no rules regarding it might be a stance in and of itself.

Participants:

• Epic Misadventures, This is my Alt – There are many like it but this one is mine.
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, I Missed This Month’s Blog Banter!
• A Mule in EvE, Meta what? Is it hurting EvE?
• Morphisat’s EVE Online Blog, Me, Myself and I
• One Man And His Spaceship, Me and My Shadow
• Ombeve, Blog Banter edition 5
• Diving into PsycheDiver’s Psyche, CK’s Blog Banter #5: Everybody Needs Somebody
• Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter
• Ecliptic Rift, OOC: Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
• The Ralpha Dogs, Me, Myself and I
• Mad Rant, “Blog Banter – It’s my party, and I’ll alt if I want to….”
• EVE Chick, The Handicapper General
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, “…you see mate, it’s a matter of leverage, savvy?…”
• New Eden Diaries, It’s only a game
• Oz’s House of the Evil Dead, If You Can’t Ride Two Horses At Once, You Shouldn’t Be In The Circus
• Diving into PsycheDiver’s Psyche, Everybody Needs Somebody
• CrazyKinux’s Musing, Leave what you know at the door please!
• Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #5 Metagaming
• Roc’s Ramblings, February Blog Banter – Meta Me
• more to come over the next few days!…

It’s been extremely stressful to say the least. 0.0 is supposed to be fun. I really need to sit down and come up with a plan to keep up with the ice without killing myself. Will I be able to pull in the type of cash I used to? Probably not, but I NEED to be able to pull in some money so I can buy the big toys I like. If not, I’ll burn out and not log in at all. I find myself taking breaks and just playing BF2 or some other mindless game.

I guess part of the problem is the corp structure. Everyones out ratting and mining helping themselves while I”m left out having to ice mine. My executive officer is out of commision for awhile while he sorts out some RL stuff which doesn’t help. I guess I need to start cracking the whip in some areas. I think some new blood in the corp would help greatly as well.

Hopefully things will fall into place a bit better in the coming weeks. Just need to keep at it and keep delegating. Thanks for listening to the rant!

Podcasts: Still dead for podcasts this week. Hoping it picks up soon.

Fly Reckless Special #1 – Finally some more commentary from SB! He is always just reading dev blogs and Eve Tribune articles. Its nice to hear some of his opinions!

Blog Highlights:

Eve Mags “Mondo’s Flight Academy” Parts III, IV & V : Still loving these!

Wensley – Taking On Interceptors: He certainly has a way of writing PvP situations like no on else.

DBR: T3CH Construction: No matter what type of pilot you are, you NEED to learn up on T3 ships and production.

Dev Blogs:

CCP Fear – Your Revamped Rookie: All of us remember the utterly shitty experience we had when we first started the game. The stupid tutorials certainly wasn’t the driving factor to why we are still playing. We all quickly realized that the tutorials were flat out wrong or didn’t cover the most important stuff. And attributes, oh how I hate you. I would love to see the whole system destroyed, but thats not happening anytime soon.

CCP Mindstar – Apocrypharrrrrdwarre!: For the geek in all of us.

#1

Congrats! With all the hard work Kirith does he certainly deserves this. 10 mil will be in his wallet today!

We didn’t have a ton of entries but hey, the blog is still growing. Hopefully we can do this again in a couple of weeks!

Remember, voting is open until Early Wednesday. To vote, just comment on this post with which number screenshot you are voting for. And yes, you may vote for your own.

#1

Caption: This screenshot came during a level four mission when Angel Cartel battleships where pounding my Rokh with torpedoes while I valiantly returned fire. I won.

Sent by: Kirith Kodachi

#2

Caption: A Tri-Formation of navy Megathrons, the very enemy of the State!

Sent by: Toni Li of Eve’s Weekend Warrior
Get voting All!