Oh My God, They Decked Chribba!

On Tuesday CONCORD Preservation and Recovery wardec'd Otherworld Empire. Otherworld Empire is owned and operated by Chribba, a beloved member of the Eve community. If you have ever used Eve Files to host a graphic for a forum signature, Eve Search to search the Eve Online forums, Eve Agents to locate an agent to do some mission running, or Eve Offline to track announcements about downtimes or server population, you have used a site created and run by Chribba. Throw in his 16 ship capital fleet devoted to mining Veldspar, the most common ore in New Eden, and you have a character sure to attract affection.

Now, when Chribba was wardec'd, he knew he couldn't defeat his adversaries himself. Due to CCP's rules, he cannot use his capital fleet to defend his high-sec player-owned stations. So instead of hiring mercenaries to defend the POS (which he has enough money to do), he decided to make a little stop in the Crime and Punishment forums, post the wardec, and then offer up the chance to have a little fun.

Naturally, the denizens and pirates of the C&P forums decided to run off and help Chribba. This should be fun to watch. The thread is already turning into an epic.

Faction Warfare Footage

Fresh from YouTube comes some footage of some faction warfare between the Gallente and Caldari militias (with some pirates mixed in) in the BlackRise war zone. For those of you unfamiliar with Eve Online's faction warfare, FW is CCP's version of realm vs. realm (RvR) made popular by games like Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online. The difference is that Eve's faction warfare is a stepping stone to playing the Great Game (to use an analogy from European history) in 0.0 space while in DAoC and Warhammer the games are all about the conflict between NPC empires.

I'm posting this video because it is extremely well done. In most pew-pew videos made by players in Eve (and most other games) the UI is usually visable, and in Eve, the UI will take up half the space. Not so in this video. I highly recommend watching this one.

Enjoy!

The Christmas Spirit In Eve

Here's a story from the Interstellar Correspondents that's in the spirit of Christmas. Merry Christmas and enjoy!

Free Jump Clone Access Service Celebrates First Anniversary
reported by: ISD Aarosin Pazuli | 2009.12.24 20:03:07

New Eden - Estel Arador Corp Services [EACS] recently celebrated its first year of providing free jump clone access to capsuleers from all over New Eden.

During the year, EACS has helped provide over 4000 capsuleers with free jump clone access, "There were 4032 clients in the first year, which is way more than I expected before I started the service," said Estel Arador the man behind this venture. The service currently provides access to approximately 447 jump clone facilities scattered throughout many regions in New Eden. EACS provides free jump clone access to capsuleers who otherwise would be unable to obtain them due to the high personal or corporate standings required.

To use EACS or any other jump clone service is simple; train the skill Infomorph Psychology to the appropriate level depending on how many jump clones are desired, join the service corporation, fly to a station they have high standings with that provide jump clones, pay the 100,000ISK charge to the clone providing corporation and the clone is now available.

EACS currently employs Estel himself, being in charge of management and policies and his "little nephew, who is CEO and handles the day to day operation." In the past capsuleers were allowed to join the corporation and stay long enough for them to effectively raise the EACS standings but in recent time Estel has stopped doing this, stating "It's increasingly difficult to find people who can raise more standings than they drop". Now Estel personally works through a great deal of missions with low level agents to build standings. Currently EACS are working on raising their standings with the Caldari, they will then be able to provide jump clone services at even more stations.

Unlike most of their competitors EACS provides their access service free of charge. So far the industry has made little response to the EACS. One of his colleagues "Genji Ancient" Estel says, "wished me luck and said it was noble to offer it for free." As of right now Estel has no plans to create any other free capsuleer services. Previous plans to create a free public blueprint library were scrapped when he realized that "people would be able to cancel each others production jobs. If there would be a way to solve that, I'd start such a service immediately."

A Change In Direction

I haven't posted for awhile. Partly because things got crazy at work. Just to give you some sort of idea, I've got 15 days of vacation I haven't been able to take and will lose because my company doesn't roll unused vacation over into the next year. Hey, stuff happens and I partially did this to myself. Next year I'll just have to make sure I plan my vacation time well in advance.

But another reason for not posting is I've been playing Eve Online. I've discovered that playing Eve isn't just about sitting in front of a computer logged into the game pushing buttons. I've spent hours playing with EveMon planning out skill queues for characters on both my accounts. And I've spent a few hours more using the Eve Fitting Tool trying to get the most out of the ships I fly. I've even opened up some spreadsheets trying to figure out profitable trade routes.

But I just don't spend a lot of time doing solo things. The writing I have done lately has been on the Eve University forums. One of the requirements for getting titles and roles is to post on the forums and I've been trying to put some quality work out there. I think I can get the "Student" title now but I've got an idea for a forum post that I think I'll submit as soon as I've written it. But it wouldn't be correct to say I write just for the titles. I'm actually learning more about how to play the game by reading and participating in the forum debates.

So am I just going to fade away into New Eden. I don't think so. One of the things that attracted me to Eve Online were the in-game stories. So what I think I'm going to do is post the stories, both the totally fictional role-playing back stories as well as the news reports of what players are actually doing, that are produced by the volunteers of the Interstellar Correspondents of the Interstellar Services Department. Occasionally I'll try to post something intelligent, but right now I'm just going to school on one character and flying a hauler around with another. The stories I find on the login page to Eve are a lot more interesting. I'll post one of the Chronicle stories below just to give you an idea. I hope you enjoy it.

ISD: Interstellar Services Department A Department of CONCORD

The Admiral closed the holo-conference connection and glanced out the window. Darkness had fallen and two of New Caldari’s moons had risen.

“Continue personal journal,” the Admiral said. A small flashing icon appeared in the bottom corner of the holographic display.

“The divisional leaders’ meeting this evening was productive, not all good news, but productive. STAR is reporting an increase in new pilots coming out of the various academies and an increased workload. I wish the academies would give a bit more real-life training instead of simulations. Piloting a Mammoth in a system with a lower CONCORD presence is much different than racing a souped-up Burst between here and Matigu. STAR needs more personnel to give these new pilots the assistance they need.”

‘The Communications Relay Commission is reporting an increase in faster-than-light message traffic. Their fluid routers are handling the load fine, but a slight increase in funding and resources may need to be considered in the near future. Spurious and illegal traffic is declining due to their efforts and some activity has been turned over to the SCC for further action. There are going to be some very annoyed CEOs and CFOs enjoying some time in the penal colonies.”

There was a knock at the door. The icon on the screen remained steady at the Admiral’s “Pause recording” prompt. “Enter,” the Admiral called out. An aide de camp walked into the room carrying a black striped folder.

“Sir, AURORA is reporting an increase in Angel Cartel activity in Curse.” The aide passed the folder over to the Admiral to look through. Graphs of souls lost, ships and cargo destroyed, projected economic impact to trade in the region and other information was dispersed through dossiers of Cartel agents, activity reports and intelligence.

“Forward AURORA’s sanitized findings to DED for action. Make sure the intelligence is clean. We don’t want to lose another AURORA agent. Don’t make the same mistake your predecessor made.” The Admiral handed the folder back.

“No, Sir! The information will be clean with no possible ties to our sources.” The aide tucked the folder under his arm, saluted and left the room.

“Resume”

The record icon on the holo-screen started flashing again. “The boys in the Technology Division want a closer look at the Transcranial Microcontrollers and see if there are any manufacturing ties to the Sansha devices. I have to agree with the Bug Hunters, the Inner Circle made too quick a decision on their usage. The Bug Hunters are also working on some other issues, the notification after a successful jump installed in the last pod flightware upgrade caused some pilots migraines and they got that removed quick enough. They bust some major butt working on these things.”

The Admiral paused for a moment and rubbed his eyes. The record icon continued to flash next to the clock. “End personal journal, bookmark and close all files, shut down. Time to head home.” The holo-projectors blinked and went dark.