The third Blog Banter of 2010 comes to us from ChainTrap of the Into the unknown with gun and camera EVE Blog. He asks us: "Eve University turns six years old on March 15th; six years spent helping the new pilots of New Eden gain experience and understanding in a supportive environment. Eve is clearly a complicated game, with a ton to learn, so much that you never stop learning. So, the question is; What do you wish that someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out? Or what have you learned in the interim that you’d like to share with the wider Eve community?"

298 days ago, we set foot inside wormhole space for the first time. Back then it was a group of 8 friends, most of us with less than 10M SPs at that time, that had absolutely no idea about wormholes, no idea about PVP (some say we still don’t have a clue), and had turned all the ISK in our wallets into a Medium POS, some supplies and fuel to last about two weeks.

We dared to venture into the unknown, dared to be bold and embraced the sandbox of the EVE Universe. In EVE – YOU – control your own destiny.

During that time, we managed:

…to make and burn more than 50 billion ISK
…to act as a fleet supporting each other instead of being a band of solo players
…to build capital ships
…to ride capital ships
…to self-destruct capital ships (damn you R&K!)
…to master the art of t3 production and make a fortune out of it
…to easily farm C6 plexes
…to have a show, podcast and blog related to w-space that acts as one of the definitive sources of information for EVE players
…to have played a major role into the CSM elections by hosting a series of interviews with Candidates
…to relay Alliance Tournament 7 for two weekends and commentate on the fights afterwards
…to fight alongside seasoned pilots
…to be considered celebrities and widely identified & to fight against (and win) against famous celebrities in planned deathmatches
…to organize our very own PVP tournament
…to lose ships due to friendly fire
…to strip belts out for vast amounts of minerals
…to mine mercoxit
…to keep losing ships and still have the "oh well.. no real harm done" mindset
…to manipulating wormholes and w-space as if we were the ones who designed it
…to see ships in directional and instead of cowering, head over to take them down
…to have a single monthly corporate meeting
…to kill a Rorqual 5 days into the w-space colonization effort
…to successfully ransom a ship for 1 billion ISK
…to take down and destroy a defenseless POS
…to take down and destroy a defended POS that someone else erected into our own back yard
…to participate into large capital fleet warfare
…to help destroy the ego of a large alliance such as the R&K
…to spend Valentine’s day fighting our most epic fight defending our home
…to spend Steak & BJ day self-destructing our assets and evacuating our Class 6 wormhole
…to grow our corp with valuable and trustworthy members
…to have the creator of EVE-HQ in our corp fighting and having fun alongside us
…to get QP’s brother to join EVE
…to make so many friends in the game
…to exploit what w-space has to offer us to the point that we’d grow tired of it
…to lose multiple billions in assets, ships, pride and not /emoragequit
…to make a lengthy post on how much we have achieved during the previous year

None of this would have happened if we haven’t dared to be bold!

This is our message to all new capsuleers:

Dare to be bold pilot!

Luminus Aardokay & Quivering Palm

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux: The Three Pillars of Wisdom
2. The Elitist: Helping the new guy/gal
3. Hands Off, My Loots: Nothing Needed
4. Rantuket: Blog Banter 16
5. EVE Opportunist: Nooby Cluey
6. Into the Unknown With Gun and Camera: EVE University
7. Zero Kelvin: We’re the young ones!
8. I am Keith Neilson: Set Your Destination
9. Prano’s Journey: Just Like the Very First Time
10. A Merry Life and a Short One: No Seriously
11. Yarrbear Tales: Nublet 101
12. A Mule In EVE: If I only knew
13. Diary of a Space Jockey: WTH did I get myself into?!
14. EVOGANDA: Why?
15. A Memoir From Space: 16th Blog Banter
16. Death’s Sweetest Kiss: Who What When Where Why How??
17. Freebooted: Beyond the Shortcuts
18. Learning to Fly: Noobing
19. Caldari Outcast: My First Blog Banter Post!
20. Roc’s Ramblings: Financial Survival
21. Diary of a Pod Pilot: Free Knowledge Inside
22. Nullsec Carebear: I could’ve been less of an idiot
23. Facepalm’s Ramblings: Something Smells Fishy
24. Kirith Darkblade: Do you wish to know more?
25. Autopilot Disabled: I’m still starting…
26. Finders & Keepers: Relax
27. Confounded Capsuleer: What have you got to loose?
28. Clan Oriana: Sixteen
29. Flashfresh: EVE Blog Banter #16
30. Rettic’s The Chronofile: You Make EVE
31. Diary of a Bored Spaceman: Past Imperfect
32. Chocolate Heaven: Known Unknowns
33. Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance Trust No One!
34. More to come soon…

For me it’s all about getting some quality time with friends, recreational games and relaxing moments.

OK let me rephrase that… it’s about playing EVE with friends!!

I have been traveling for work all week and didn’t have time to play at all. While on the plane (about 10hr mid-air this week alone) I was listening to the Missions Collide podcast – these folks have a great show you really need to listen – great information even for non-mission runners like us. I lost some interesting moments like when our Orca was jumped by a group of some nice folk and we decided to pay the one Billion ISK ransom than to lose it, the stuff it had inside & the implants on my alt’s head. Well sometimes you win… sometimes you learn…

Learnings:

a. Never use your Orca for ore hauler – yes it’s effective and efficient if you are *that* bored to use an itty but it’s expensive if you lose it – and not mention that if you do use it make sure you empty it’s cargo from anything valuable before you take it out. Yes that includes the ships in the maintenance array. Leave it inside your POS, have all 3 links running and go risk your Hulks and haulers instead. Also – don’t use drones – but we’ll cover that some other time.

b. Pay the ransom if you believe that the money they ask is less than what’s worth it to you. Not sentimental values or any that crap. ISK of ship + mods + implants + time. Time maybe hard to calculate on the fly, but for wormhole living it’s at least a week to be able to find a suitable wormhole exit to be able to bring back inside an Orca. One week with the Orca at the helm of Mining Ops will net us much more than 1 Bill so correctly we decided to pay.

c. If you are a pirate reading this *clears throat* and you see an Orca in a Wormhole system with 2 Refineries and 2 Large POSes and 4 Corp Hangar Arrays might worth more than 1 Bill… just putting it out there… Emphasis on “wormhole system” :-p

Now we have learned on how to use the lack of local to our advantage and inside wormhole space our efficiency has greatly improved but we really suck at typical 0.0 warfare. Having 3 bombers cloaked really isn’t much of a surprise to anyone if they know there are people in local. Not something we learned from this encounter other than that we need to get ourselves trained. Our efficiency in non-wspace 0.0 just sucks.

In the near future we will be taking the Agony Unleashed PVP training as a corp. We might have more details to disclose during the next Planet Risk Show, but if you would be interested to participate on the same group with us, post a comment here to let us know or drop me an eve-mail.

Now, on another note… I’ve been trying to catch up with the EVE Blog Pack… man too many good blogs I don’t have the time to read them all! So I won’t mention anyone yet till I get the chance to read them all and pick my favorites.

However, a special mention goes out to Star Defender of EVE Wormholes, who inspired me to start this post about RnR since he is now back in k-space training for his Itty V before he returns into wormhole space.

This particular discussion got me thinking about lawless space and the importance of having a group of people to share your experiences with. Going out in lawless space can be a bit scary and difficult for solo gameplay, but if you add more people it gets… more interesting to say the least! If these folks are on your team then it’s awesome. But sometimes you meet folks not from your side of the pond. There is the NRDS (Not Red Don’t Shoot) approach… and the kill-everyone-who-is-not-in-your-corporation approach…

…Or NBSI (Not Blue Shoot It) as they call it. We operate under NBSI not only inside Planet Risk but also in adjustent systems. There was a guy who once told me that we act like pirates (we did kill and pod him along with 2 of his corpmates)… but he was inside Planet Risk, not using directional and not using combat probes. Although we might have overreacted a bit (ye apologies on decimating your corpse then asking you to pay us ransom so we don’t burn your pos etc etc) but… in fact this is 0.0 space and you must expect that other folks want to rape and kill you… It makes you a bit paranoid about your own safety and that’s a good thing for EvE.

d. Not using directional will get you killed folks.

e. Make sure there are no POSes before you even decloak to launch probes.

On a similar note, one can solo wormholes in a class 2 maybe even in Class 3, but it’s so much better to get into a corporation with other wormholeers. It’s not about managing the logistics more efficiently or if you will burn out if you solo everything (you will at some point) but it’s about the fun you will have and the awesome moments you will share with friends in a Multiplayer Game!

I know that last week I was away from the game, I didn’t miss the cold metal of my internet spaceship. I missed the fun we have with my friends and corpmates when we play the game. Sharing the good and the bad moments with friends and having a laugh about it is what MMOs are about.

QP

- Enabled Google Friends Connect & Follower

- Updated Poll Section – vote now

- Added “Wspace Operations” section that will include tips & tricks on maintaining a successful Wspace colonization operation

- Added “Guides” Section that will include step by step guides on using tools or doing various tasks easier and more efficiently

- Added “Fittings” Section that will include all our suggestions, fitting setups for PVE/PVP and related fleets, as well as POS fittings and setups.

- Updated Links to various pages & link categories

- Added all the Blogs from the EvE Blog Pack. We plan on following all of them and so should you!

- We now appear on Capsuleer! (huzzah!)

As always, let us know of your feedback!

yes we did!

What a day today!!! We have been covering the Alliance Tournament and between matches, I check to see of any comments on the Planet Risk Show blog (this website duh!) and I notice CK’s response welcoming us to the Blog Pack. Luminus had to quickly change from a commentary to a song cause he thought I had some panic attack or whatever…  LOLs

But what can we say? This is a pretty new blog and I did check out some of the other contesters for a spot on the Blog Pack and given the quality of some of these entries I didn’t think we had much of a chance! I am a bit ashamed that I haven’t noticed some of these blogs before they got on the Blog Pack – but I am glad cause I’ll have more EVE goodness to read every day

I must admit I was really happy to see Star Defender’s wormhole-focused blog get in the Blog Pack as well – I believe that makes us 3 out of 40 blogs that have an angle on wormholes – together with Letrange’s EVE Blog.

I should be updating the links on the website soon – but not today as I need to get some sleep and get ready for tomorrow’s epic AT7 coverage!

In the meantime you should definitely check out The New Blog Pack!

We are sure as hell delighted to be part of it!