The Amarr are burning

Posted by Kyle Maxwell (@kylemaxwell) on

Minmatar plexing ships

This week, CCP Games launched the Inferno expansion for EVE Online, including major updates to the factional warfare system that they’d neglected so very long. As the feature had originally been one of the primary attractions for me, I gladly reactivated a FW alt. Ghost Outrider joined Skadi’s Call, a PVP/RP corporation fighting on the Minmatar side. This felt very natural for me, largely because I have always played Minmatar and because [SKDI] in particular has sort of a Norse feel to it – one of my favorite aspects of Minmatar lore (besides punk rock and moar dakka).

Two of the changes in FW stand out in particular. First, stations will deny docking rights to members of the opposing militia, based on whichever side has conquered a particular system. So if, say, the Caldari take sovereignty in a system, the Gallente and Minmatar can’t dock there anymore until they take it back. Second, and because of this, taking a system now requires significantly more effort so that pilots don’t find themselves logging in after sleeping to find that they can’t redock in the station in which they logged out.

Put these two factors together and you had a recipe for huge fights in the last week or so before the Inferno deployment in a mad positioning scramble. The Minmatar ended up solidifying an already-winning position, but the Amarr pulled a few interesting diplomatic maneuvers in addition to fighting well. As a grunt, I don’t really care that much about the politics, and as a player, I love seeing things become dynamic and interesting rather than static and boring. But as a roleplayer, my character got pissed[1].

Now I don’t PVP very well. I know the basics and I’ve taken a few courses from Agony Unleashed, but I know how terrible I am. Still, the vagaries of fleet warfare mean that my killboard for the last few days has started to look not so bad. Even better, because we generally need to fly small tech 1 ships (mostly Rifters, Thrashers, and Ruptures), it doesn’t cost very much even when you lose. That also means that, even though I love to blow them up, mad props to Fweddit. They are terribad, even by my standards, but they keep fighting and coming back rather than sitting in station and crying about CCP hating them or something. Fweddit seems to get EVE: have fun, keep going, and don’t worry about it. And the only way to get better is to keep playing, so I look forward to seeing what they can become in a few more months.

Protip, though: don’t use civilian stasis webs in PVP. And don’t carry skillbooks around in a fight.

[1]: “Angry”, not “drunk”, for you Commonwealth types.

Return to EVE blogging

Posted by Kyle Maxwell (@kylemaxwell) on

This post marks my official return to EVE blogging.

Well, in a sense, because Chrome Bits will not focus exclusively on EVE Online, as I don’t play it nearly as exclusively as I once did. Most of my gaming (and other entertainment) happens within the science fiction genre, so Chrome Bits will focus on this large niche.

I’ve blogged about related topics before. At one time, I maintained a blog called “Ecliptic Rift” (which is still my related Twitter handle, at least for now). I also once wrote a blog with the same name as this one which covered similar themes plus digital storytelling and relevant social media themes.

So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way: returning to EVE after an extended break has taken some interesting twists. My brother also has returned, along with a few of his meatspace buddies who have just begun to play EVE, and I’ve spent some time advising them on the twists and turns of Internet spaceships. As it turns out, this has done more than any other particular thing to rekindle my love for this game. Every answered question leads to some response like “oh that’s cool!” and “man, I want to be able to do that!” The well-known chart What to do in EVE Online has provided particular value. The tough part, of course, comes when you tell a new player that he’ll need to pick one or two activities and focus on those first, at least after he’s shotgunned a bunch of different things to see what feels fun for him.

So their little corp does a bit of mining and mission running to generate ISK, despite my warnings about fatal boredom. I’ve taken them on a bit of highsec exploration with my Loki, and they seemed to have liked that. We’ve talked a bit about PVP, but I haven’t managed to assuage their fears. When I explain that they should treat frigates like ammo, they remain unconvinced. I expect that one or two of them will drop out of EVE after their first month (although I’d like them to stay), but the others might well stick around even past the release of Diablo III.

I still have to stay casual. In the past, I’ve allowed MMORPGs to take over my life to the point that I endangered more important areas of my life such as family and work. Consequentially, I mostly trade and explore in EVE. Focusing on what feels fun rather than what seems most efficient also helps a lot, because gaming should never turn into work (well, unless it is).

Inferno also heralds major fixes to factional warfare, which I loved. If I think I can find lots of frigate PVP in it (preferably solo-ish), then I might stick an alt back there. Otherwise, I’ll spin up an alt to terrorize the spacelanes in a frigate as a highsec pirate / ninja type. Because, you know. Yoink.