EVE Online | Dominion 1.1 Patch Notes

Motherships are a thing of the past and are now known as Supercarriers. These frontline behemoths will retain their former hulls which are the Aeon (Amarr), Hel (Minmatar), Nyx (Gallente) and Wyvern (Caldari). Supercarriers will receive a massive boost to hit points and can now field Fighter Bombers.

Lots of changes…  Balance stuff, new EVE Voice stuff, new EVEmail stuff…  But motherships are no more.  It isn’t just a name change either…  Their role in a fleet is being completely changed.  They can’t fit jump clone vats anymore.  They’re front-line combat now.  Wow…

Helicity Boson took a lot of crap from Hulkageddon II.  Lots of folks crawled out of the woodwork to say very unpleasant things.  Today, Helicity has a response, and it is impressive to say the very least.

During the run-up to HAGII I received a comment on the blog, it compared me to various historical figures, each responsible for countless atrocities. That in itself is kind of flattering, though I’m afraid I must admit I do not yet have the resources to round up and gas a random ethnic group purely for my own amusement. We’re working on it.

No, the stunning thing here, is that I was compared to Adolph Hitler AND Joseph Stalin at the SAME TIME.

The more astute and historically inclined amongst you will see why this juxtaposition is incredibly funny.

For the more stupid and uneducated amongst you (I hate you), that is like saying I am like an apple and an orange at the same time. They are both Fruit, but VERY DIFFERENT kinds of fruit.
Moreover, they are mutually exclusive kinds of fruit. If it’s an apple. it can’t be an orange.

And that, my friends, is what actually made me mad about EVE for the very first time.

If you are too fucking retarded, not to realize, the two simple facts that:

• Ganking in a video game IS NOT EQUAL to the genocide of 6 million jews.
• Hitler and Stalin ARE NOT compatible with eachother in any way or form.

Then I hate your guts, and you should be fucking reading a book instead of destroying your remaining braincells staring at a mining laser or Worlds Collide 4.
WHAT THE CHRIST MAN? Life is too short to waste it like that, have some fucking fun, don’t play a game to perform a task more boring than flipping burgers, a task so SHITTY most people aren’t even at the keyboard to perform it!?

But if you say that, what happens NEXT is really going to blow your mind. You see, now you have insulted “their way of life”. Way of life? YOU HAVE NO LIFE YOU DUMB COCKSUCKER.
And when you even imply, in  a rational and friendly manner that maybe they could change their behaviour slightly, to improve their own chances in the game. Well… you get called hitler by angry space nuns belonging to a make-believe-unrecognized-religion, and some other WalMart employee wishes Bowel Cancer on you.

That’s just a sample…  And you really ought to read the whole thing.  Unless you can’t handle profanity, because it gets very profane.

And, yes, Helicity was compared to both Hitler and Stalin.  At the same time.  And someone actually wished that Helicity would get cancer.  Because of the events in a video game.

Now, I’ve always felt that “it’s just a game” kind of misses the point…

These are generally real people you’re playing with.  Human beings with emotions and feelings.  So it makes sense to be a bit upset if you get booted from a guild you’ve been with for years, just because you’re not epic enough to raid.  Or if someone you thought was your friend treats you like a leper because you don’t have enough purples.  That’s hurtful.

But in a PvP game…  To wish cancer on someone for having the audacity to actually participate in PvP?  That’s a little extreme.  And the folks who are having that kind of visceral reaction to the events in a video game really need to go outside and get some perspective.

So…  Hulkdageddon II is officially over.  It should, technically, be safe for me to undock my hulk and do some mining again.  I can’t say I’m real eager to test that out though…  Just because Helicity says it’s over, doesn’t mean all the gankers have gone home.

Looks like some pretty impressive damages…

After our week of preying on the defenseless, the stupid, or the plain braindead, we come to the following:

1220 Exhumers

332 Barges

12 Orcas

240 capsules

(and one Carrier, which is a bit silly, but I’m leaving it cos it’s cool)

According to the Griefwatch killboard, which undervalues exhumers significantly, this brings the damage inflicted to:

278,865,104,560 ISK

Needless to say, that is a poo-poo load of damage inflicted.

I wonder what effect that will have on the price of minerals?  I have suggested before that the end result of Hulkageddon II would be beneficial for any miner with half a brain…  I speculated that all the destroyed ships couldn’t help but raise the demand for minerals…  And that the reduced competition ought to help raise prices…

But now I’m not so sure.  There’ve been some others speculating along the same lines I have…  And the responses seem to suggest that a good chunk of the minerals in EVE’s economy don’t come from mining at all.  Seems like a good chunk of those minerals come from reprocessing mission loot.

In fact, it’s been suggested that mining could go away entirely and not have an effect on the economy at all.  Which seems very wrong to me.  If you’re going to put in a game mechanic like mining, you ought to give it a purpose…

Well, anyway, I’ll likely have my Hulk back out in the belts before too long.  Well-tanked, but half-afk again.  Maybe I’ll actually buy some insurance before I undock it this time…

MMORPG.com | EVE Online:  2009 Game of the Year

Every year, one game stands out among the rest, and while it would be easy to crown a winner based on subscriber numbers alone, we all know that a high subscriber count does not necessarily the best game make.

So instead, we decided to open the category up and instead look at multiple factors: design quality, fun, popularity, continued progress and more.

One game, however, stood out among the rest as the 2009 Game of the Year.

So, this Hulkageddon thing is turning out to be pretty spectacular.

Several hundred Hulk kills already, and lots of complains on the forums.  Seems like every other forum post is somebody whining about Hulkageddon.

A lot of these whiners seem to be of the opinion that Hulkageddon is somehow unfair or against the rules or something.

Honestly, these folks are just stupid.

Take a look at the killboard…  Half these Hulks didn’t even have a tank fitted.  If you’re flying a T2 ship worth over 100 million ISK with absolutely no tank fitted, you’re just plain stupid.  I don’t care if you only ever mine in 1.0 space…  It’ll get blown up eventually, and the insurance just isn’t going to cover it at all.

Of those who actually have tanks fitted, many of them never even activated their tank.  Which means they weren’t paying much attention.  I’m guilty of mining half-afk myself…  I lost an industrial ship transporting some goods through low-sec space because I was half-afk and on autopilot…  So I can relate to that.  But if you aren’t paying enough attention to activate your tank, you can’t really blame the gankers for you loss.

Especially this week.  With all the coverage that Hulkageddon has received, there’s absolutely no reason to be AFK mining.  That’s just plain stupid.  Which is why I haven’t even undocked my Hulk this week.

For those of you who’ve never flown a Hulk and have no idea what they’re capable of…  And for those of you who do fly Hulks, and have absolutely no idea what you’re doing…

Rule #1 of Hulk Club is to always be aligned and ready for warp.  Hulks are slow, cumbersome, lumbering beasts.  If you need to wait for you ship to align for warp you’re basically dead.  Take a few minutes to set up some handy safe spots ahead of time, and make sure you’re always aligned for warp while you mine.  Then, if anyone suspicious hops into your belt, you can take off almost instantly.

Rule #2 of Hulk Club is to always be aware of your surroundings.  Watch local chat.  Watch your directional scanner.  Keep an eye on your overview.  You shouldn’t be mining in a busy system anyway, as there’ll be too much competition.  So it should be fairly obvious when people show up who don’t belong.  And when you see ships showing up on your local chat or directional scanner, you get the hell out of Dodge.  Warp to a safe spot or dock up.

Rule #3 of Hulk Club is to always fit a tank.  A Hulk is capable of perma-tanking battleship-sized rats.  You can also fit a flight of ECM drones to give you a little more wiggle room.

Assuming you’ve followed all three rules, there’s no reason for a Hulk to get ganked.  You should have more than enough tank to survive long enough to warp off.  So the folks who are getting ganked are basically doing it wrong.  They’re not paying attention, or they aren’t aligned, or they aren’t tanked.  Which means they’ve got nobody to blame but themselves.

As for myself…  I’m looking at Hulkageddon as an opportunity.

Hulkageddon is thinning out the ranks a bit.  There’ll be fewer macro/AFK miners around after this.  Which means there’ll be less competition on the market.

Less competition…  Fewer minerals for sale…  And increased demand as people replace their ships…

Smells like profit to me!