It’s a pretty exciting time to be a gamer. There are a whole lot of games and expansions all releasing around the same time. I don’t keep as up to date as I should on the non-mmo gaming front, so my list is probably a bit more sparse then some others out there. What am I looking forward to? Well, there’s the EQ expansion, Veil of Alaris that releases in November. I’m really excited about this expansion, it’s just beautiful. EQ2 is also putting out their ‘expansion’ (I use the term loosely) Age of Discovery. I’m a lot less excited about this update then I am about the EQ expansion. There’s not a lot of actual content coming with it, although with mercenary and a new class I will say that casual players should be pretty happy. I’m holding off on any other comments until I can actually get my feet into it because until then it’s just speculation. I’d be much happier if this was coming as a free update rather then a paid expansion. World of Warcraft has their 4.3 patch coming out (supposedly) some time in November, which I am also pretty excited about. I’m looking forward to new dungeons, new gear sets, and I’m really looking forward to appearance gear for once. I’m even looking forward to the raid finder tool, which I think will be fantastic for casual players who don’t have the time to devote to finding a raid guild – or those of us who are in tiny little 3-people guilds who haven’t been able to raid yet.

I did decide to sign up for a year of WoW in order to get Diablo 3 for free, along with the mount that will be released in 4.3. The game has enough casual aspects to it that I find it quite relaxing along with my adventuring in EVE Online. SWTOR release date is just around the corner, but not being a fan of sci-fi I haven’t pr-ordered and I’m not really sure if I’ll play. I know my other half will be picking up the game and I’ll probably just live vicariously through him and his adventures. Until the peer pressure becomes too great, of course.

Skyrim is one of those non-mmo games that are certainly on my radar, and I do plan on picking up once it releases. The game just looks beautiful and it’s been a while since I’ve played a single player. I don’t really think the sims 3 counts. Speaking of, I’ve been having loads of fun with their latest ‘pets’ expansion that released this month. It’s a great game when I’m not in the mood for anything multi-player.

So what are you most excited about? Perhaps nothing coming out tickles your fancy at all? Let me know in comments below!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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It doesn’t matter what game I play, I love getting new things. Some times those new things are gear, weapons or even crafting supplies. In EVE one of those things is ships. Ever since I heard that there was a little war on ice miners I decided that I wanted an ice mining ship. Technically I could use my hulk (as I’ve already mentioned) but the Mackinaw receives a lot of bonuses for ice mining in specific. Today I decided to purchase one, and I’ve got three more days before I can finish fitting it, but it’s coming along nicely. I gave it the name ‘Cyrosphere’ which I think suits. I was a bit sad when I looked at the insurance value of the ship. The maximum you can get back is 26 million ISK, and the ship is going for roughly 115 million in Jita. That’s not including any money you spend fitting it. I took it out for a spin and was incredibly happy with my results, but I was also very paranoid that I’d get shot out of the skies, even if I was in .7 HighSec. After a few circles of the mining guns I decided to head back to the station and refine my goods, which is where the real money comes from.

Hopefully things will calm down for ice miners before too long, and I won’t have to be constantly looking around for people flying in all of the sudden. Of course it’s better to be safe than sorry, but after losing my hulk last week I really wasn’t in the mood to replace a 2nd ship quite so soon.

It’s almost time for me to upgrade my research agents again. I’ve been working on missions for Creo and my standing is almost high enough to warrant the change. I’ve been with my current agents for a long time, and even though I only visit them when I need a bunch of datacores you sort of get attached to them. Plus they’re in a nice location that’s easy for me to reach when I’m en-rout to my factory outpost.

Once I finish training the ice harvester, I’m going to complete fitting the Dominix (I sort of stopped half way through) and then work on my other crafting skills like mining different types of ore and refining them. Maybe I’ll do a little wurmhole exploration, and eventually I’ll finally get the hang of probing. In the mean time I’m still bugging corp mates to help me with that.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself! I hope all my friends down south stay safe with the storms that have been passing through. No sign of any snow up here in Ottawa.

o/

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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It feels really good to be back in EVE, and even better to be spending most of my time ‘crafting’. While the majority of people I know spend their time blowing up other ships (be they NPC or players) I spend a lot of mine crafting or preparing to craft. You may hear about how boring mining is, but I find it incredibly relaxing. It’s something I can do while doing other things (especially since I mine in high sec without using cans). I’m working on affording an ice mining ship, technically my hulk could ice mine, but it doesn’t have the bonuses that the new ship would have. It’s about 140 mill ISK to save up for one, so I won’t be getting it any time soon.

I’m thinking of starting up an alt on my main account, simply to be able to produce more in PI. It takes about a week to train the skills I would need and PI products are selling quite well. I have never really required another character on my account because you can only have one character training at a time and you can quite literally ‘do it all’ on one character. It just takes a lot of time.

My new corp and I didn’t work out so I moved back to the smaller one I’ve been a part of for the last year or so. I should have known better, it’s rare that I play well with others (there’s a reason I run my own guild in WoW and EQ2 after all). Long story short, I thought I was joining a friendly casual guild but when I joined and lost my hulk in their sector I received some not-too-kind emails stating that I was making their killboard look bad and even implying that our own members may shoot me down just to prevent this from happening in the future. I understand that everyone has their method of playing the game but as a member who had been there less then a day (and personally, I don’t give a hoot about killboards) I found this discouraging. I never pretended to be anything other then a carebear gamer (in EVE at least) who spends most of her time mining, inventing, and doing PI, whether or not I lose a ship shouldn’t be that big of a deal. It is EVE after all. It happens.

Anyhow. I can continue to spend my time in game doing what I do, which is supplying other players with POS bits, selling ships, drones and other crafted items. All from the comfort of the small but friendly corp that I started out in. I’m just not a blood thirsty player, and I don’t pretend to be.

Kasul managed to probe a nice mining site this morning which was a lot of fun. I’m still trying to get the hang of probing, even in my Helios I have some issues finding good sites. It takes a lot of practice. Thankfully he has no issues with probing for sites for me and I split the profit of anything I mine. He has a little hulk he takes out when he has the time, and I go to the site in the Orca as well as the Retriever (which will eventually be a hulk on my second account. In 18 days or so). The Orca takes care of any rats that wander into the system and it’s a nice hour or two of relaxation in the mornings.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week! I apologize for the lack of posts lately, but I have been dealing with real life (it crops up from time to time) so I haven’t been posting as often as I’d like. Hopefully things will quiet down after next Friday and I should be back to my daily blogging schedule. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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There’s been a lot of talk floating around lately about CCP and their recent layoffs, 20% of their staff were let go. My heart goes out to those people involved as it certainly could not have been an easy decision. Going forward CCP has vowed to concentrate on those things that they should be concentrating on, and not spreading themselves so thin. This has brought about a lot of snark from the usual suspects, but I’m ever the optimist and will just have to wait and see how things go.

Today I decided to activate my second account again after having only been back for one day. My second account acts as a hauler account typically, but before I stopped playing last time I had set it to learning to fly a hulk. My main account owns and flies an Orca,which can get pretty dull when you’re not filling it up with ore. Ideally I would probe for grav sites and head out in the Hulk, leaving the Orca close by so that I can ship the ore some place else afterward but that’s a whole lot of work. I’d rather take advantage of the fleet bonuses and use both the Orca and the Hulk at the same time. It will be 20 days before that’s set to go so in the mean time I’ve been harvesting in my retriever which isn’t nearly as fun but it gets the job done.

In the mean time I’m working on my standing with both CreoDron and Astral Mining Inc. CreoDron is the corporation that my R&D agents are associated with, having more standing with them means I can work with better agents. Astral Mining Inc is the corporation I want to earn LP with so that I can purchase some pretty things in the future. I’m working with L4 agents for CreoDron and L1 (for now) with Astral, hopefully I’ll get them both higher before too long. I enjoy mission running, it’s quite calming (where I run them at least) and lets me take in some pretty sights.

I’m also still working on PI daily, as well as my invention and production. I’m waiting for a copy job to go through (13 days) and wondering what I want to build next. I’m quite happy with my selection of ships at this point in time but I could do some work on fitting them all properly. Most of my ships are a mish mash of bits and pieces that I’ve pieced together, a combination of items available by skill and by availability. I also spent some time switching ships back and forth between my accounts, so getting everyone their own ships is high on my list of priorities.

It feels really good to be playing again. I didn’t even realize how much I missed flying the skies until I was back. Sure, there are some less than savory folks out there (50 million ISK in order not to get podded? I think not) but it adds to the atmosphere of the game.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

o/

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Once more I have been pulled into Tranqility by the lure of – well, nothing in specific, in fact it’s something I can’t quite put my finger on. I received an email from CCP stating that I could log back into EVE for only $4.99 for my first month  back, and the price was just too good for me to resist. Before I knew it my finger was on the activate button and I found myself in game trying to remember what I was doing before my break. Playing EVE is like riding a bicycle, you take a few minutes wobbling around and then it all comes flooding back. I had docked at the headquarters of Genovian Holdings Inc. (my current tiny inactive corp) and the first thing I noticed was that our HQ was gone, items missing, and corp wallet empty. It took me a few minutes to figure out what had happened, and by then I had already frantically tweeted to Petter (CEO) wondering if we had some how been stolen from. Turns out being inactive is bad. We couldn’t pay the rent due for our HQ and thus we lost our hangars. I’m not sure if everything in them transferred to me, but 600 of those items did and I found them in my inventory.

I wouldn’t mind being in a more active corp, but I’m nice and cozy in my high sec space, aside from some wurmhole exploration I tend to stay that way. My ‘gaming’ involves a lot of invention and manufacturing with some mining runs thrown in there for good measure. I have never been one for a lot of killing, although I am working on fitting my dominix for some ‘pew pew’.

I updated EVEMon and saw there have been some changes, both to the program itself (which I use for skill tracking) and the API from CCP. I can now track and view multiple things involving my character like research and standings. Right now I’m working on propulsion jamming IV, and then it’s time to work on energy systems operation. I currently have 24 skills at level V with 13 million SP spent. Not that much compared to some players, but a comfortable amount for me.

I haven’t checked on my PI yet, but that will be next on the list as I ease myself back into things. I was manufacturing items for drones and then selling those drones in Jita on a weekly basis to fund my wallet and I’d like to get back into the habit of doing that (along with some invention). I was also working with an agent or two on some missions, but I have no idea what faction I happened to be working on (or why I was working on it) so that’s on my ‘to do’ list. All in all, it feels great to be back. I think it’s the sandbox flavor of the game that keeps pulling me in. As any long time reader of this site knows, I am really not a fan of any science fiction what so ever. It typically puts me to sleep. EVE, somehow, has managed to beat those odds.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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There’s an interesting Devblog post up on EVE that states that CCP is going to charge people $99 a year for the use of applications or services which uses the EVE online Intellectual Property (such as the screen shot I have above) – if you’re making money (or attempting to make money) from where those intellectual property things are. Let me explain better – see that donate icon I have on the right hand side of my site? Yep. That counts. Even though I have never ever gotten a donation from having it there. Notice how I also have google ads on nomadicgamer.com because they are there by default with wordpress? That counts. Even though I don’t see a lick of anything that gets made from google ads.

Needless to say I have a few thoughts about this. Number one, if EVE thinks they can do a better job at promoting their game then the small bloggers and MMO sites out there – then kudos to them. I think they’ve forgotten that a lot of these people who are running ads on sites are their fan base, and word of mouth is a powerful thing. I can understand why they may be thinking this is the best plan of action with things like iOS and android apps that are hitting the market requiring payments – but EVE has allowed players to access their character information without cost from 3rd party apps (EVEmon?) for years now, and if those 3rd party apps are accepting donations I don’t see what the big deal is – and I certainly don’t feel that they should be charged $99 a year to keep those apps running to the public. Here is the part of the post that irked me the most:

• Will corporation and alliance websites require a commercial license?
• No, private websites do not need a license. However, if you have an external facing part of the website that uses the EVE IP you will require a non-commercial or a commercial license, depending on your use.
• Will services for in-game currency require a commercial license?
• Yes, if you require any sort of payment for your services you will need a commercial license.
• Will website ads require a commercial license?
• Yes, for ad-supported websites you will require a commercial license.
• Will donations require a commercial license?
• Yes, for donation supported websites you will require a commercial license.
• Will I be able to charge real life currency for in game services?
• No, the commercial license does not allow you to charge real life money for any in-game services.

I certainly will NOT be paying $99 a year to make blog posts about the game and include a screen shot here and there simple because I have a donation button. I’m going to retaliate (small time blogger that I am) by not writing about their game at all when this goes live, and they can deal with that instead. I realize I could simply remove any intellectual property of theirs I may have, but as one of the little guys, I have very few options presented to me on ways I can ‘fight back’ when I don’t agree with their decisions.

** Lets say that even though screen shots are considered intellectual property, I am not personally affected – but – you know who is? EVEMon, who I use daily, Battleclinic, who I also use daily, and numerous other 3rd party apps who accept donations of ISK or cash. This is going to hurt ALL of them. If you have an OPTIONAL donation addition to your project, and you use the API or any other intellectual property, you will be affected. There are 28 (at this moment) pages of comments from developers and fans alike, who are trying to speak out against this. **

What are your thoughts about this new ‘service’ being implemented? Be sure to check out the dev blog write up for all the details. They HAVE mentioned that due to comments they will certainly reconsider some things if required, so be sure to make your voice heard.

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Ah, Jita. 15 jumps away from headquarters, and well out of the way of my regular travel paths. I head there once a week to sell goods from PI as well as my supply of manufactured bits. I’m always astounded by the number of people who are there no matter what time of day I happen to show up, and of course public channels are filled with everything from scams to sales of every shape and size. Jita is the major trade hub in EVE and represents a city just as much as any other game has. I fly all of the way out there because it’s where I typically get the best prices for my goods. I could stay in my neck of the woods and visit Dodixie but the prices there are slightly under what I get in Jita making the 30 jump round trip worth it.

I loaded my Orca up to make the trip, because it has the ability to hold the most stuff. I’ve taken my Dominix out for a spin or two but nothing heavy until I can get it fit properly (and yes, pkudude99 the dominix is a very small ship compared to – well, compared to everything really, especially compared to the orca). As soon as I get a little more training done I’ll upgrade some pieces on my current fit and start working on gathering faction again. I’d like to be able to work with another R&D agent, and raise my standings with those I am already working with. Earning more RP is always a good thing.

PI seems to be moving along nicely. Coolant is selling well (it’s used in a number of things including fuel for POS) and I’ve been making a few other materials to sell. It would be nice if I were making enough ISK to purchase some PLEX to cover my subscription, but in order for that to happen I’d have to be playing EVE full time – which I’m not. In fact I don’t really play any one game ‘full time’ as it were.

I’ve got (at the time of this post) 1 day and 12 hours left on my small hybrid turret V and that will make the 23rd skill I’ve got at skill level V. I’m nearing the 15,000,000 SP mark, which is pretty neat. I’ll have to upgrade my clone soon, as my limit is 15,700,000 SP. Next after small hybrid turrets it’s time to work on small blaster specialization, which will take a little while. Then I’m moving on to heavy drone operation. The list of skills one can work on in EVE is never ending – which is something I really like. In fact I really like the whole “no levels to gain” aspect of the game, and the fact that you don’t need to be any particular level to do any ‘sphere’ within the game. Doing the tutorials is often enough to get started although it does help to have friends who can help you out with ships and supplies.

A brief little blurb about DUST which I saw some video on at E3 – I’m excited about it. No, not because I’m a big FPS fan, but because of the implications that come with having a game that interacts with EVE – I’m assuming (because I honestly don’t know many details yet besides the video that I saw) that I will be able to craft and create supplies that those people playing DUST will be able to use (ie: guns, ground vehicles, etc) and that will mean a lot of extra cash for me. I’m excited about it. I don’t know how else the two games will interact with one another, but I think it will be quite neat. I know there are a lot of people who are upset that it’s a PS3 exclusive, but CCP knows their company and their games pretty well. If it’s a PS3 exclusive, I’m betting they have their reasons for it and yes, I do own a PS3 so chances are even though I’m not exactly a FPS fan (at all) I will probably give it a try.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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When I got the email about being able to reactivate my (two) EVE accounts for five days, and then being able to purchase a 60 day sub for $19 – I tried to hold off, I really did. It’s pretty common knowledge that EVE is the one non-fantasy MMO that I enjoy an enormous amount, and the only space orientated MMO that I’ve managed to stick with for whatever reason. I closed my account not too long ago, deciding that I simply wasn’t investing enough time into the actual game. I still don’t have a large amount of time but I have been managing things slightly better, and the appeal of flying my Orcca around once again was too strong to resist. So I activated for the five free days before they expired, and then I subscribed for the next two months.

It felt good to be back. Really good. The first thing I did was take a look at my PI stations (planetary interaction) and curse myself for not having switched over to the latest method. One of my stations used the new extractors, but the other four did not. I spent some time dismantling old extractors and then placing new ones and routing my supplies to their proper locations as well as checking my storage facilities to ensure nothing was over flowing in my absence. Then I headed to my two R&D (research and development) agents, picked up their much neglected missions, and purchased all of the data cores that I had earned RP for (there were a lot) in by absence. When I had left I had a fairly steady production of Hammerhead II’s going on, but I’m a bit short in supplies at the moment so I plan on restocking and then getting back into production. Crafting in EVE is one of the highlights of the game for me personally, and besides that and working on factions it’s probably how I spend most of my time.

As far as my skill queue goes, I don’t quite remember what I was working on. I’m flying an Orcca which I adore, but I believe I was training this account to better outfit my Dominix which is a fantastic little ship for doing missions. I had a dominix plan saved in EVEMon so I picked up with that. I can already fly the dominix so I’m pretty sure the plan I’ve got currently is just to increase my skills and to fit it properly. I should have an easier time with missions (hopefully) since I’ve been spending most of my time working on mining.

The temptation to start up my second account is very strong, since then I could use my Orcca to haul around ore that the 2nd account is mining. For now I’m going to resist temptation though. One account really should be plenty. Should be.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Of course the big news yesterday (I’m cheating and posting this for the 18th even though it’s the 19th now, I’ve been very sick all week) was Incursion going live and with it one major feature that I was interested in – the character creator. I didn’t mind the previous one because we never really SEE our characters per say, but I really had a lot of fun re-creating Ellithia. Since I have some what of a back story for her I already knew in my mind what I wanted her to look like, and the customization available was fantastic. It reminded me a lot of working on 3D rendering in DAZ or Poser. There wasn’t the largest (or nicest for that matter) selection of hair or clothing options, but certainly a lot more customization than was previously available.

The character creator is just one of many things that were implemented though. Another huge change came to the Planetary Interaction system which I was incredibly happy about (taken from patch notes):

• Players can now upgrade command centers from basic all the way up to elite without replacing their colonies.
• Only basic command centers will be seeded on the market now; larger centers will now be purchased as upgrades via the upgrade window.
• Extractor control units (ECUs) have been introduced on all planets. The ECUs can be built from the build menu, replacing extractors.
• Extraction is now done by extractor heads that are installable via the ECUs.
• ECUs also allow installation of extraction programs. Players can now create extraction programs that run up to 14 days. These automated extraction programs will harvest resources based on the settings in program creation.
• Prior to installing an extraction program, placed extractor heads can be moved by clicking the button at the center of the extraction head. Extraction heads can be moved via drag and drop to resource hot-spots for a greater extraction amount.
• You can set the area that your extractor heads will extract from, which will affect the length of the extraction program and amount of extraction.
• Overlapping extractor heads from different ECU’s will cause a reduction in extraction amount from each extractor head.
• Pinned UI windows are now affected by the global window transparency settings.
• The new ECU window will display a colored graph to indicate the deposit of each cycle.
• The output per cycle of ECUs diminishes over time. The output is, however, variable in a way that even though it generally decreases, local “hotspots” can still occur.
• Sounds have now been added to cover changing resource intensity and interference from other extractor heads.
• Routing materials is now more intelligent. Processors are prioritized based on how close their hopper is to being filled. Storage pins are routed in equal amounts.

Having extractors replaced into these new control units is great. It is much easier for a new person to figure out how the PI system works, and it was easier for me to place what I wanted. Having the extractors work on 14 day rotations instead of my daily rotation is also a huge help as I was neglecting PI by not logging in every single day to check on them. Now I just need to make sure that my storage units don’t fill up too much before I unload them. Allowing us to upgrade centers via an upgrade window instead of having to buy every type of command center as we progress is also a really nice change. I spent most of last night (after I fiddled around with the character creator) fixing PI.

There were so many other changes there’s no way I can fit them all in this post, so I highly suggest you check out the link mentioned at the beginning and read through it all. I also found it interesting that there is a voice program implemented in EVE Gate now, beta stages so far. If any of you are checking it out, let me know what you think!

Over all, I like the changes. I can certainly see how some people may not enjoy them, especially after having their ‘old’ characters for so long, but I was pleased with the outcome of my own.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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Last night I took the Orca out after Kasul scanned down a few grav. sites and finally got to stretch her legs (so to speak. Don’t worry, I know ships don’t really have legs). The shear size of the Orca and how much she can carry was finally realized. I had been waiting for leadership V to finish – this would allow me to fit my mining foreman links, I have one for laser field enhancement (increases the range of your fleet’s mining lasers, gas harvesters, and ice harvesters) and also fit my laser optimization which reduces the duration of those mining lasers. Yum. Kasul flew his new hulk, and I boxed my 2nd account, flying my retriever. It’s not a hulk but it will work for now. After about an hour or so of mining we made 10 mill ISK in ore, and had completely filled up the Orca. Yum.

Now I have to decide what I want to work on next. Ship wise, I think I’m pretty well set. I like the dominix and the hulk, orca, and helios as my main ships. I could use better guns on the dominix, and there is a lot of processing I could pick up as well. I am training tactical shield manipulation V currently so I can finish fitting the orca, and then I’ll decide what to do next. My 2nd account is working her way towards a hulk, so I can pass the one that I’m currently using on my main account. I’ve spent so much time crafting and working on PI as well as invention / manufacturing lately that I haven’t gotten around to doing any missions lately and my guns are going to get rusty at this rate.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

©2012 MmoQuests.com. All Rights Reserved.

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