My first shot at Fleet Command

...albeit a bunch of Frigates, was quite good fun.

Readers will possibly recall a couple of months ago that I said that I would give FC'ing a go at some point in the future, well Kishin had pulled at my sleeves quite a bit about teaming up for a run down to my old haunts and I eventually caved. I posted up the Op on the corp forums and was fairly surprised at how popular it seemed. Some 9 pilots had signed up a ship to the cause, despite me stating that this run was estimated to take a helluva long time and cover over 80 jumps. As I was wary of my inexperience at being FC I decided after recommendation by a corp-mate to cap loss reimbursement at 5m isk to encourage T1 non-faction frigates, any "shinies" were bring at your own risk.

Looking at the roam in retrospect, I can see that it was too long and I was flagging at the end. It was however fun, and nice to breeze through gate camps in our bunch of Frigates. Targets were scarce unfortunately, though that's not a factor that I can influence. I imagine I will FC again, though I feel the preparation that I put in planning the route and setting up in & outbound safes paid off. Without the preparation I think my experience would have been very different. It was also nice not to be a Scout, sitting back in almost armchair mode. I made some effort to try and rotate the Scouting too so that no-one was unduly lumbered.

Below is the After Action Report I posted:
We departed on time from Hevrice with our Frigates and set course for Huola, encountering no targets we headed on towards Evati. In the system Hofjaldgund a Faction Warfare mission opened and Tsubutai went in with his Claw and swiftly despatched a Kestrel, no sooner had the Kestrel been dealt with than a Rifter landed. I called the fleet to warp to the mission but the Rifter was down before most of us landed. And so we continued onwards. We chased a few targets around in Hadozeko but alas they came to naught aside from bagging a few abandoned drones after Tsubutai managed to chase off an Arbitrator in another Faction Warfare Mission. We moved through Evati and in to Todifrauan where a neutral Rifter pilot had the gall to engage Kishin on a gate. Kishin having none of it killed him stone dead. After a short rest stop our fleet numbers diminished to six as some folks needed to log. We headed the back way towards Aralgrund but found nothing available to us. We did see a couple of large gangs but slipped by past them. Setting destination back to Hevrice we methodically scouted systems for targets as we downsized to five members as the roam had gone on for what must have been around 3 hours. Mr Snypes who was ably scouting for us at this point announced sight of a Brutix and tackled it as the rest of the gang were engaged by an Omen on the gate in Ingunn, giving the order to jump in rather than agress the Omen we warped Mr Snypes only to see our brave Incursus go "poof" :o, gladly though additional points had been applied to the Brutix. We took out his flight of Warrior II's and ECM drones before making short work of his pure gank shield buffer fit. Warping to a safe to wait out GCC so that we could dock up with the loot Mr Snypes searched the local markets for a new noble steed and found one in a neighbouring high-sec system. Once GCC was up he purchased the craft and rejoined the fleet as fortunately his incursus was very generous dropping 100% of the modules on to make fitting the new one a breeze. While we were waiting out our GCC we were probed out by the Omen pilot we encountered earlier. Seeing him land with us and being nicely pre-aligned we warped to another safe much to his chagrin. It went that smoothly that Kishin didn't realise that we had moved :!: Back in fighting form we continued our journey back to Hevrice. It was when we reached around 10 jumps from Hevrice Zombie, who was scouting announced four EVE Uni pilots in system in Interceptors & covops. We set up a bait for them which they took eventually and then dropped a fleet of around 25 ships onto poor Zombie who had no means of escape. I certainly was flagging by this point in the roam, some 5-6 hours after we had started and we make best speed for Hevrice.

April 2010 Character Review

Now down to 279 days to go on the Rifter plan, it's reassuring to continue to watch it gradually diminish and I am happy that I continue to make progress despite the increasing temptation to fly other ships.

The next goal is the Dramiel, I will train up Gallente Frigate V once the remaining three Drone skills of Drone Durability, Drone Interfacing & Minmatar Drone Specialisation are at IV. I anticipate that we will be in June however before I am behind the controls of the aforementioned Dramiel.


The most significant increases in skill distribution this month are seen in Drones, Navigation, Engineering & Electronics. Aside from the Drone skills it is slow going as the Rifter plan skills are all level V's left to train with minimum train times of just under 8 days.


Kirith's main hangar was restocked this month, at a cost of around 120m isk. There are now just under 40 fitted ships in Hevrice with more in other locations. I have steered away from the T2 Assault Ship hulls this time as I am finding myself disappointed with their performance. Instead of the T2 hulls I bought 10 Rifters with a loadout I want to test, I'm sure I will lose quite a few before I get a true feel for them. I will post the fit in a future post.

My alts are doing a sterling job of station trading still this month, station trading alone this month has brought in 252m isk. Not bad for 20 minutes spent per day I feel. Less than a week now until the afk miner is into a Hulk.

Updated Battleclinic stats:
- The Tuskers are ranked 36th, up one place on last month.
- Kirith has 498 kills for 95 losses.
- Accumulated assets destroyed total of just under 10.5bn.

Tusker Interview #6

Well, no posts for about a week, apologies. That thing called "Real Life" has thrown a curve ball as it sometimes has the habit of doing. The positive of this is that this evening I decided I was going to do something rather outrageous and completely out of character in the near future in real life to attempt counterbalance said curve ball!

Anyways, enough of that. Romeo Blakstorms latest Tusker interview is up. It's another recommended read. This time he interviews Kishin Hattori a fellow Rifter enthusiast. The interview took place only a few days after Kishin joined The Tuskers and I'm sure if interviewed now his answers might be a bit different in some areas.

You can read the interview here

Spring has Sprung

Casiella Truza of Ecpiltic Rift posted a few days back about their in game plans in the near future taking them through Spring 2010. He asked the community if they had any interesting projects coming up.

Jumping on the bandwagon, this is what Kirith and my second account characters have lined up:

Kirith
As I worked out this morning has another 118 days to go before setting foot into a Rupture. The Rupture will be nicely fitted out and have all the necesary skills to fly it well and I am very much looking forward to the day I fly cruisers, and especially battlecruisers.


Why so long? a lot of corp mates have asked. Well, of course I could fly it quicker than that but I have some rules that I am following you see. I am determined that I do not lose sight of my long term goal of flying a max skill Rifter. When I say max skill I mean literally every skill that is publically available and affects a Rifter I will have at 5 at the plans conclusion. This includes all of the support skills. Not only then will I fly a fairly overpowered Rifter, but loads of those skills will naturally benefit a host of other ships. But I digressed a bit, so back to the subject of why so long. Every skill towards the Rupture I am taking to least level 4, once I have that skill to 4 I do another Rifter skill to level 5 and interleave them. Eg.

- Combat Drone Operation, train levels 1-4.
- Fuel Conservation, train level 5.
- Drone Interfacing, train levels 1-4.

You get the idea. Now the shortest of my Rifter plan skills as they are all train to level 5's from 4 is currently 7 days 22 hours and they get longer from there.

There are two distinct sections of skills for the Rupture, Drones & Cruiser specifics like medium guns. Once Kirith completes training the Drone skills, a quick stint of Gallente Frigate 1-5 will be trained to give my a bit of fun as I plan to buy a Dramiel to mess around with.


The alts
My alts are still doing a comfortable job of station trading generating a nice income stream on their basic bog standard 5 orders. Bringing in an average of 8-10m isk per day for 30 minutes of time spent updating orders.

In 12 days my "afk miner" will be in a Hulk.
Plus 33 days an alt will be behind the wheel of a Charon Freighter
Plus 55 days the other alt will be a properly skilled Covops pilots

TL:DR
Kirith, Dramiel & Rupture
Alts, Hulk, Charon, Covops

How about you, anything interesting planned?

EVE Blog Banter #17: The Female of the Species

Welcome to the seventeenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

What could CCP Games do to attract and maintain a higher percentage of women to the game. Will Incarna do the trick? Can anything else be done in the mean time? Can we the players do our part to share the game we love with our counterparts, with our sisters or daughters, with the Ladies in our lives? What could be added to the game to make it more attractive to them? Should anything be changed? Is the game at fault, or its player base to blame?

===========================================

Wow.........

CK you really do ask the greater community the easy questions sometimes don't you.

I have broken the "mighty paragraph" down into its constituent parts to attempt to answer it. My answers are based on my own involvement with female players of MMO's and may not of course be fair view of your average female MMO player. I am also a former long-time WoW player and much of the context I use will using that as a comparative.

What can CCP do to attract and maintain higher percentage of women?
Hmm, I'm not sure that both parts of this question fit together because there is the possibility that they adversely affect the other rather than compliment each other. You see if by the process of attracting female players there are changes to the game as we know it those changes "girlify" the game then CCP may succeed in raising the percentage by virtue of losing male players. I can bet my bottom dollar this won't be acceptable to them. So, anyway where was I?

Oh yes, how do CCP attract more female players? I think if I knew the absolute guaranteed answer to this I would be knocking on CCP's door and demanding a percentage cut of the new players they gain. I can only offer up my main suggestion, which is that CCP alter their....

Marketing
EVE is marketed with imagery surrounding it's superb graphics, these images typically show ships, battles, explosions and destruction with a pretty backdrop. These typically are not the aspect of the game that the women I know look for in an MMO. Of course take these out and how do you grab the attention in your marketing? Find a way of presenting industry, trade and production. If we have to have some 'plosions and battles represented, how about concentrating on the "healer" and support roles of Logistics, Carriers and the like? The women I know have always preferred the support & healer roles along with maxing standings, crafting and trade skills. Also promoting that you do not have to grind your way through levels and progress in real time even when you are not online should receive some love.

A quote from a female friend who trialed EVE:

"It really only appears to be aimed at blokes who want to 'blow shit up'" & "It's geared to fighting and I don't think that's what most women look for in a game"

As for how CCP can keep their newly acquired and highly treasured female players, I think this will take care of itself. The game is very robust and has massive scope that is likely to "hook" them from very early on and drag them to the keep net. Of course EVE isn't for everyone, so there will always be natural wasteage.

Will Incarna Help?
Probably, though with the lack detail released at the moment I cannot add so much context to this. In my opinion (Dons Kevlar Helmet) women are more interested in vanity, and being able to create a visually pleasing to them incarnation will be something that I expect to be very important to them, especially so in the interaction between players. I expect that us males can only sit back and adore some of the creations that they will model. Though of course that assumes there will be player input into creation of the incarnation along with it's external appearance. Whereas I anticipate most GIRL's (Guy In Real Life) avatars will probably end up slutty incarnations of some sort, at least for male players in their tweens.

Can CCP do anything else in mean time?
Of course, changes to marketing. Raising the games profile to a female audience. And building a solid way for sexual harassment in game to be handled will show that CCP care and are serious about its female gamers. A dramatic shift in population male:female is bound to spark off the heap of immature folk we have amongst us in game.

What can the existing players do?
Existing players can do a lot when around female players. This applies to both new and veteran players alike. Practically foaming at the mouth and drooling over them like some slack jawed beast is not going to endear them to you or the game is it? Not treating the female of the species like a complete idiot when they are playing is also a sure-fire way to piss them off big time. Sure they are a noob but we were all one once, remember. Interlacing sexual inuendo around them really pisses them off and is a sure way not to be spoken to again too.

What could be added?
More Epic Arcs with worthwhile rewards. The Entry level SOE Epic Arc is great for getting new players out into the blackness of space. Make more of them, but how about Arcs that are not just about blowing stuff up? Industrial and Exploration Arcs would be a superb hook I beleive.

Raise the profile of trading and add more detail to the tutorials surrounding areas like the market where you have for example the mystical and not well explained "Price History" Tab. I'm an accountant IRL and yes I understand it, but it would greatly benenfit from a better explanation.

Demonstrate the cycle of EVE and how everything links in the cycle of life, for example:

Miner>Ore>Sell Ore>Industrialist Buy Ore>Build Product>Sell Product>PVP Pilot Buy Product>PVP Action>New Ship Required>Return to Start

Should anything change?
In my opinion it doesn't need to, players are players ultimately whether male or female. Sat at my desk in control of my Pod/Ship I don't know (or care) if the person I shoot at who is sat at their desk is male or female.

Of course from CCP's perspective if they can access this untapped market then they can invest more RL isk into the game and potentially make it even better for us all!

Is the game at fault
Maybe, EVE is lets face it for the most part about the PVP. It's what makes the cycle of life quoted above turn over and keep the game, economy etc rolling. The women gamers I know are typically not into destruction. They are into support and creation.

Is the player base at fault?
I think the only fault here is a bunch of men trying to get/force/coerce their *Insert Female Relation Here* to try and EVE and sometimes push too much. All they will tell their friends is going to be *Bloke* tried to get me to play his computer game last night, I won't be doing that again. Be there to help them and give gentle support when they might need it.

As my ex-wife, MMO player said:

"It normally takes a man to get the woman into a game like EVE"

And I this I beleive is where better marketing, raising the profile etc will tip the balance and open up a host of womens eyes to the wonder of EVE. This is the obstacle for CCP to overcome.

Apologies if I have offended anyone in the content of this post. As I said at the start I am sure it is not representative of everyone but is based on personal experience.

A selection of some other participants in this Blog Banter so far include:
- Freebooted: The Rise of the Female Gamer
- Flashfresh: Women in my Spaceship, is she from Mars?
- Wench with a Wrench: Where are all the Wenches?
- A Merry Life and a Short One: You'd Rather be Playing SIMS Right?
- Sweet Little Bad Girl: EVE vs Women

For the most recent posts, check my feed on my right hand navigation.

Tusker Interview #5

Another in Romeo Blakstorms' series of excellent interviews with fellow Tusker pilots is available here, I recommend you head over and get to know Mr Snypes.

You should know that Mr Snypes has the some of the hottest crew on his ships in all of New Eden!

Q&A

I have a couple of blog posts lined up but they are not finished yet, and I don't really want to post them until they are complete.

Whilst contemplating subject matter and topics for future posts I wanted to throw out to the readership the opportunity for you to tell me what you would like to see in print, or perhaps anything you would like me to answer. Post your ideas as comments or send Kirith Darkblade an in game eve-mail.

On a separate note, after my recent spate of ship losses I have for the last few days gone back to my roots, where I cut my teeth as a pirate to my Heimatar/Metropolis jump clone. It's been nice to fly around some quieter space and get reacquainted with some old faces and indeed to meet some new ones too.

It also seems that I can't keep a low profile anymore, as lots of people are reading this on their Iphones or the net and greet me in local. Don't get me wrong thats great and its good opportunity for either a polite conversation or even impromtu roams with fellow piratical sorts. I do however always feel rather guilty about talking to them on one hand whilst systematically hunting and destroying them with the other. So I guess the moral to the story is that even if we are having a nice chat, then unless we are fleeted up you are still fair game and no hard feelings!