Morning Discussion

And a good morning to you, Shacknews. It's looking like a grey, rainy Tuesday here in northeast Indiana, but I am hopeful that the sun will come out at some point today.

I keep meaning to actually play some video games in my free time--50 Cent needs to be finished, Dawn of War II is looking lonely--but I keep getting distracted by The Wire. I'm mid-way through season 2, and it's to the point where I'm watching a disc per night.

Lastly, there are few things more annoying than a pair of headphones on its last legs. The sound on the right side keeps cutting in and out, and I'm getting dizzy. Blah.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 10, 2009 7:29 AM

    Holy crap, it's about time.

    New Eve Online expansion comes out today. Discuss.

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      March 10, 2009 7:33 AM

      Is this the one that introduces the Zerg?

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        March 10, 2009 8:45 AM

        imo an npc (or even gm-run faction) Zerg/Flood/Tyranid type enemy would be sweet in a space mmo. Gotta stop them before they infect more and more worlds.

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          March 10, 2009 8:46 AM

          that would be an interestingway to challenge sovereignty in the game, perpetually have these npc masses pushing up on territory. Hmmm.

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            March 10, 2009 9:02 AM

            No. PvP only. fuck that.

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            March 10, 2009 9:08 AM

            Almost sounds like the Pirates in Sins...

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            March 10, 2009 9:24 AM

            This used to happen in GemStone III. Hordes would attack the city and lower level punks would have to hide in the underground while the others cleaned everything up and got some swank loot.

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              March 10, 2009 2:23 PM

              I loved that game, but I spent most of my time milking the economy. I don't think I ever got a character past level 25 or so. My friend and his brother played hardcore though, got 90+ and hunted the Rift and shit. I just made massive amounts of silver and got shit altered. It was basically text fapping.

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          March 10, 2009 8:47 AM

          It sounds to me like they're sort of leaning that way with the Sleeper faction.

          I almost imagine them like the Reavers in Firefly already.

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            March 10, 2009 9:04 AM

            Sleepers are hard as fuck. The "wormhole" only allows so much mass through. So you have to be fitted extremely well. Spider tanking carriers and well tanked BSs.

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              March 10, 2009 9:05 AM

              They put out one of the harder wormhole NPCs onto SiSi and it was raping dreadnoughts hahaha

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      March 10, 2009 7:37 AM

      despite Reptile trying to force feed me patch notes...i know nothing about it yet.

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        March 10, 2009 7:38 AM

        i have seen the wormholes information and those look hella fun!

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          March 10, 2009 9:04 AM

          Yeah they sound cool, they're basically CCP's way of putting Arenas into the game.

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          March 10, 2009 10:53 AM

          wormholes scare the fuck out of me

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            March 10, 2009 10:59 AM

            Sleeper cruisers raped my command ship on sisi

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              March 10, 2009 11:43 AM

              this sounds promising. Is it the damage output or was there some of effect going on?

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              March 10, 2009 5:16 PM

              Were you in a gang or solo?

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                March 10, 2009 5:51 PM

                I was with 2 HACs, another command ship, and 3 carriers (that weren't there at that moment.)

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        March 10, 2009 7:38 AM

        People will bow to it!

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      March 10, 2009 7:44 AM

      I want to know what the old players think about the new stuff in it. Revamping the character creation and new player missions makes me interested again.

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        March 10, 2009 7:55 AM

        Character creation is now a lot better for some purpose-built alts, a lot worse for others, and in the end much more beneficial for new players.

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        March 10, 2009 7:57 AM

        I'm curious as to what the new character creation will be like. It's the 2nd major overhaul they've done to the process. The new ship fitting window gives me a semi as well. One thing that still hasn't been fixed, that I know a lot of vet players are a bit sore about, is POS warfare.

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          March 10, 2009 8:02 AM

          What's broken about it?

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            March 10, 2009 8:36 AM

            not so much broken as it is incredibly fucking boring, not to mention the spammy nature of it.

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              March 10, 2009 8:36 AM

              I think, really, the best fix for it is to set a cap on the number of POSs in a system that can actually claim sovereignty.

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          March 10, 2009 8:05 AM

          point of sale warfare or piece of shit warfare? Neither of them make too much sense to me.

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            March 10, 2009 8:10 AM

            Player owned structures :)

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              March 10, 2009 8:30 AM

              i have a med true sansha death star i can sell you.

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        March 10, 2009 8:12 AM

        The new character creation stuff is much better for newer players because it doesn't immediately force choices on attributes and professions right up front when the player has no idea what is going on. It is basically just pick a race and make your portrait and then everything else is done in the tutorial/missions. Its not so great for old players because even though you train faster you start with 50k skillpoints instead of 800k so you can't make an insta-useful throwaway alt.

        Oh and they added epic mission arcs but just one level 1 epic arc. Kind of underwhelming but I'm sure they'll add a bunch more soon now that the arc system is in the game.

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          March 10, 2009 8:22 AM

          50k?? Do you mean you get the eventual 800k after completing the tutorials or something? \

          Otherwise, that's a pretty big handicap for a new player.

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            March 10, 2009 8:29 AM

            You just train at double speed until 1.6m skillpoints. It is not necessarily a handicap because a new player can train exactly what they want instead of getting a bunch of skills they don't want/need.

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              March 10, 2009 8:31 AM

              Isn't most of that training going to be dumped in learning skills? This sounds kind of dumb to me. What am I missing?

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                March 10, 2009 8:33 AM

                think about it, you are getting a bonus to training speed for the first 1.6m SP. you sink all that into learning, which helps you train faster AFTER that 1.6m SP cap is hit. back in the day, this took a good 3-4 weeks to get the learning skills where you needed them to see a difference.

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                  March 10, 2009 10:20 AM

                  I guess I'm thinking more of the mindset of a trial player. Are they going to know to train up the learning skills? You say "useless skills" but I've never found any of my skills useless... just not being used at the moment :)

                  I guess I'll have to see it myself. I thought giving a "general" range of skills off the get go with a focus determined by your bloodline was pretty damn good.

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      March 10, 2009 8:34 AM

      I'm resubbing once I get some cash in the bank.
      Going to rejoin my old alliance now that they've cut ties with BOB and we're going to go wreck some goons.

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      March 10, 2009 9:13 AM

      That's it, I'm resubbing tonight.

      I quit EVE because I thought I had done everything there was to do. Now there's something pretty freaking cool to try.

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        March 10, 2009 9:25 AM

        this is always what brings me back as well :-(

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          March 10, 2009 9:38 AM

          why stop subbing? just get a GTC, train your skills, and continue on. this way when shit like this comes out, you are AWESOME with your skills.

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            March 10, 2009 10:30 AM

            I'm already awesome with my skills, (5 years of nearly uninterrupted, focused training) and they don't typically release the skills for the new stuff until after the new stuff comes out.

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            March 10, 2009 10:32 AM

            because I had completely stopped playing for nearly 6 months and didn't think I'd come back.

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      March 10, 2009 9:16 AM

      I patched early this morning, Can't wait for it to open up and check it out

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      March 10, 2009 9:30 AM

      So what's new in the expansion?

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        March 10, 2009 10:22 AM

        Biggest additions are adding new areas of space that can only be accessed through limited, and random, wormholes. UI tweaks including a new fitting screen that can be configured with pre-set loadouts. New tutorial and character creation.

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          March 10, 2009 10:56 AM

          New exploration scanning system!!!

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            March 10, 2009 11:40 AM

            Fuck I don't even know how to use the current (or old) scanning system.

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        March 10, 2009 10:56 AM

        [deleted]

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      March 10, 2009 10:36 AM

      So this game has intrigued me enough to grab the trial version. Is it really as hardcore as people say? If I don't have 10 hours a day to devote to it, should I not bother? I'm pretty casual when it comes to MMOs, but I'd really like to fly around a massive galaxy and do cool shit and earn space bucks. Also, do you need a joystick to play it or can you get by with a mouse/keyboard a la Freelancer?

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        March 10, 2009 10:40 AM

        the learning curve is pretty hardcore, but advancement doesn't require a ton of free time because skills are trained in real-time whether you are logged in or not. the time you spend actually playing the game only impacts how much money you make. joystick do not apply, completely mouse/keyboard interface.

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        March 10, 2009 10:41 AM

        The learning curve really isn't that bad. If you like space shit then you'll have fun while learning anyway.

        You don't need to poopsock to have fun. I think of it as pretty casual. If you want to get hardcore, there's certainly room to do that.

        No joystick required (in fact I'm not sure if you can even use one?). Mouse/keyboard is just fine. Try it out, free trial, nothing to lose, etc..

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        March 10, 2009 10:51 AM

        It is hardcore in that the universe is very dangerous and things like scamming, spying, stealing, ganking, etc. is allowed and even encouraged as opposed to many other mmo's.

        Note the result is a game that plays very very slowly because everyone is so cautious.

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        March 10, 2009 11:42 AM

        Here is a great blog to read if your new http://hammer-eve.blogspot.com . Just go through all the topics on the right.. You'll pretty much get a huge amount of insight into the game.

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        March 10, 2009 11:53 AM

        thanks, i'll definitely give the trial a shot. it does sound pretty damn cool.

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        March 10, 2009 5:21 PM

        [deleted]

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      March 10, 2009 11:02 AM

      [deleted]

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      March 10, 2009 11:53 AM

      I am patching right now. I am heading to best buy to get the box set for it and am going to own it by this afternoon. I have like a day left on my trial and I am looking forward to not having to do the same mission 3 times in a row.

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        March 10, 2009 12:51 PM

        I'm patching my second client right now (yes Reptile I know I could've downloaded a single file for both - I chose not to because I'm really working for real and don't care if it takes forever), and can't wait to play tonight!!

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          March 10, 2009 3:54 PM

          yeah I patched my desktop and laptop this morning and it took a total of like 5 minutes

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      March 10, 2009 12:54 PM

      [deleted]

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      March 10, 2009 12:55 PM

      The Mittani writes columns now: http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/65110

      pretty awesome stuff.

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        March 10, 2009 1:16 PM

        thats a great article actually

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        March 10, 2009 1:45 PM

        That's an amazing article, love the timeline at the end: http://images.tentonhammer.com/eve/delve.gif

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        March 10, 2009 2:12 PM

        There's a layer of devious brilliance in that article that makes me miss Goonswarm.

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        March 10, 2009 3:35 PM

        goddamn that is incredible. lol @ six thousand dollar ship being destroyed o_O

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          March 10, 2009 4:47 PM

          and SirMolle (leader of Band of Brothers/Kenzoku) has lost 4 of them

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        March 10, 2009 4:10 PM

        [deleted]

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        March 10, 2009 4:20 PM

        listening to a couple of his speaches I wonder how well he would run a spy organization for national defense.

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          March 10, 2009 4:22 PM

          Two completely different things. The only risk in EVE is losing invested time.

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            March 10, 2009 4:40 PM

            agreed, the same social circumstances apply though if you are cold enough to throw away operatives but it would be human operatives.

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        March 10, 2009 5:09 PM

        tagged for late-night reading. I really enjoy the Mittani's discussions of this stuff, since he breaks down hardcore EVE gameplay stuff into words and descriptions that non-players can understand and appreciate.

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        March 10, 2009 6:04 PM

        Great article!

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      March 10, 2009 1:54 PM

      Is there a shack Corp? I was in goonfleet for a bit but it was too big for my tastes.

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        March 10, 2009 2:03 PM

        [deleted]

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          March 10, 2009 2:18 PM

          i love the kha'ak is dead and replaced with gcr again but its not really used anyway. misterphoton's corp is pretty much the default empire corp now.

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            March 10, 2009 2:27 PM

            So what's the default low-sec corp/

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              March 10, 2009 2:38 PM

              Nomadic Wayfarer Syndicate is renting in 0.0 at the moment.

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              March 10, 2009 4:11 PM

              if you mean no-sec (i.e. 0.0) that'd be NWS.

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        March 10, 2009 3:56 PM

        yep, you can come join us in Torrinos if you'd like, we're going to try out wormholes and die horrible gruesome deaths

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      March 10, 2009 2:19 PM

      God damn this is taking its sweet time to download.

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      March 10, 2009 2:25 PM

      Subscription Status: Suspended
      Reactivate
      Requested Deactivation
      7/9/2007 8:10:00 AM

      I quit cause it was boring as hell and I spent more time offline training than online playing. Why should I come back? What changed? (A lot, I presume?)

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      March 10, 2009 2:40 PM

      everyone come play lotro instead, im lonely

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      March 10, 2009 4:09 PM

      why did they change the warp effect?? :( I liked the shaky old one better.. :(

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      March 10, 2009 4:16 PM

      omg skill queueing = jizzed in my pants.

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      March 10, 2009 4:51 PM

      Is it possible to play Eve casually?

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        March 10, 2009 4:54 PM

        That's a question I have too. If it's anything like old Eve, the entire game is waiting for training to happen while you're offline anyway. =(

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        March 10, 2009 5:09 PM

        Sure! Some really cool stuff can happen over a two hour time span, especially if you have an active corporation.

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      March 10, 2009 4:53 PM

      It says incompatible version when I open up the client and I seem to have the patch. Not sure what I'm doing wrong...

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      March 10, 2009 4:59 PM

      Anyone around that can sell me a timecard for isk? That still works with inactive accounts right?

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        March 10, 2009 5:02 PM

        Also, is there any way for me to see which of my characters had the isk on it? I can't remember =(

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          March 10, 2009 5:09 PM

          log in and check your wallet!

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      March 10, 2009 5:06 PM

      QUESTION

      I can't get to a retail store to buy the box version, so if I resub on my account, and I order the box version, can I add those sixty days to my account or what?

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      March 10, 2009 5:11 PM

      Awesome.....decided to resub back up and realized I've still been paying. Downloading now (new PC) but god I hope I had a 28 day + training going when I left.

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