Alliance Intolerance

Stone Wall Inn Revisited

Apparently they heard about our St. Patricks day parade rules.  UK is on the warpath again as well.  Someone let me know if Empire is still around–I always assume if I’m not there, the server doesn’t load the system.

Curse and a Paladin

Picked this screenshot up the other day on a roam around space adjacent to our alliance.  The Curse belongs to our fleet, the Paladin was a blue moving through the gate we briefly camped.  The drake is me–cheap and expendable.

Isk In Space

War in Space

Still means hurry up and wait, regardless of the setting.  Is the primate below in a vagabond?

Tech 2 DPS Needed!

Beginning of the week brought new tidings from our neighboring PVP alliance, UK and some other group I haven’t heard of, Embers of Fire.  Another group, Bombus polaris [sic] declared and retracted war within minutes.  Not sure what that was about.

Coming to get us, apparently.

 

Nothing Instant in EVE

Not unlike The Great War, apparently mobilization means fighting and there is nothing our diplomatic corps can do to avert it.  However, why is there a 24 hour wait?  Why not instant combat?  Perhaps UK needs to train another set of skills to wage war?  I guess it is so that the “victim” cannot be immediately ganked in highsec by a suprise wardec (if there is such a thing).

So far the combat seems to have centered on UK blocking the pipe to highsec for our logistics.  A virtual “space blockade” on the bottleneck to market meaning there has not been a sustained engagement as of yet.  We have seen a few 5-15 ship fleets come through our space looking for lone targets, but they tend to get cloaky when we come out to fight.   I went on a short roam yesterday with some corp mates in tech 1 frigs and a cruiser.  We went to the UK hangout, and I saw my first war target icons.

All Cloaked

Everyone expects this to be a long war, and UK has wardec’d several other alliances and corps as well.  I can only guess they want more pvp in more places.   Until I can do more than tackle, I am guessing I will be piloting a pod more frequently in the coming weeks.

Monday Ice Op

The corporation continues to move along, working on our fuel needs for the various POSs and the new station.  Today was ice mining, but unfortunately the dark glitter did not spawn, and we were left with enriched clear icicles to pick apart with our mackinaws and hulks.

Blue Beams of Happiness

I really need to get my second two miners into tech II ice harvesters.  The one character I have using tech IIs outpaces them by a large amount.

0.0 and Me

Having switched multi-box obsessions from LotRO, to EQ2, and finally landing back in EVE the last few months, I made the move to 0.0 space and a new corporation while remaining on speaking terms with Wilhelm and Potshot, et. al.  I’ve been taking lots of screenshots, and may try to do something similiar to Kilgore’s EVE Online Pictures for awhile.  First up, corporation mining operation this last week.

Lots of Lasers

Things went well until our frequent roaming band of gankers came by from -A-.  We quickly reshipped and began to harrass the two reds in our system, giving them enough time to call in reinforcements and cost me a drake.  Incidentally, the same gang caught me the next day while I was installing “Cinderalla” on another computer for my daughter.  This time it cost my other pilot a raven.  Apparently, they hate children and I can’t seem to learn that 0.0 AFK equals 150 million ISK.

Speaking of which, Adam of The Witty Ranter and other Virgin Worlds podcasts has joined me in 0.0.  He seems to be having fun, although his losses of choice are hulks rather than Caldari rigs.  Of course, it helps when your ratting with this monster.

Goldfinger and Me!

We used his firepower and my drake to get a nice kill a couple days ago.  Incidentally, Adam got credit for helping kill my drake as well.

Tagged–6th of a 6th of a 4th

Wilhelm over at TAGN tagged me for the sixth screenshot meme.  Here is one as close to the 6th folder and shot as I could find.

 

This is my old four-box crew from EQ2 on the Crushbone server.  They were somewhere in the late 50s at this time (about a year ago or more).  From left to right are my bruiser, swashbuckler, fury, and assassin.  Not sure who to tag….

Highlights of the Shadow Odyssey

I have had a couple of nights with the Shadow Odyssey now and am intrigued enough to accelerate the grind of my new trio.  I have to admit I have had only one trip into a new instance, Befallen.  It was for about two hours and five deaths, but still was a lot of fun.  Figuring out the new instances is always a blast.

Other highlights:

• Memory charm–reset your vitality to 100 percent. Technically, these are 5 year account rewards but were released with the expansion.  As if my leveling wasn’t fast enough.  I used the charm last night, earned levels 48 and 49 in short order.  Was back to 10 percent vitality by the end of the night with another 6 days 20 hours on cooldown. Two hour duration 55 percent XP bonus pots are also good stuff. 
• Dire Bear mount/pet–I am happy to have a “free” mount.  I am also happy, near as I can tell, that there is no stat bonus to the mount making the guild mounts superior.
• The lack of my t8 toons–not a highlight of the expansion, but an frustration for me.  I miss Gaff, my 80 berserker, and my illusionist trio.  I can’t bear to go grind out the new quests in the Moors without them.  SOE:  Give us a new, free character transfers.
• New AA tree–when I moved Lurk I didn’t assign all my AAs so I still had 18 to put into the mix.  The new tree has some quite useful slots–increase tradeskill progress, power pool, and health to name a few.

The Guk group is in the late 40s, with 50 to come tonight, I hope.  Sinking Sands awaits.  I went around to some “classic” zones, Everfrost, Lavastorm, etc., the other night in a search for easy quests and got frustrated with the “kill ten x” format.  I left with a guildie, the esteemed Ghostfrog Ranger to grind grind grind.  Triple-up minotaurs do an XP bar good.

Shadow Odyssey in Hand

I have purposely kept myself ignorant about the new EQ2 expansion.  I typically choose to experience a new expansion or game when it is live rather than applying for a beta or doing a lot of advanced reading.  Warhammer is an exception, and we know how that worked out.

So as I write the install splash screens are rolling by–I wish they had included some text, as it would help pass the time.  I had to go two places in town to find three copies of the game.  Best Buy had one copy this afternoon, and it was opened so I passed.  GameStop said they didn’t get very many in this time, but did have three copies for me.  One is open, I hope it is the one they had on the floor.

More to come, I hope!  I just found out today that there is content for lower levels!

SOE is a Tease

So having started the game at launch on my main account, I am eligible for my five year reward today, per the MOTD in game.  I hit the /claim, and moused over the reward, hoping to see a listing of the item before I decided if I needed it in my bag.  No list.  So next step, since it reads “one per character” was to claim.  Nothing.  I looked in my window to see what I received and got the message “You cannot consume this item.”

A mystery.  Or a bug.  Wasn’t the four year reward fubarred too?

I have to add an edit here–I logged on at 6 am CST today and saw the “You may now claim your 5 year veteran reward” message in the MOTD.  They have now changed it to reflect the Shadow Odyssey launch as the time for claiming said reward.

Pathing and You(s)

Nek Castle is the devil.  It is the worse experience I have had with a multi-box group.  I led my three toons through the zone yesterday with some help from guildies, and had to manually manuever all three up every flight of stairs.  I felt bad each time everyone had to wait while I selfishly took the time to move everyone around.  I even sentenced group members to die while I was busy with my little army.

I will not be returning for the Missing Mask HQ, although I did pick it up…  Running the zone at level 40 netted me almost two full adventure levels and a couple AAs.