Looks like I came back to EVE just in time for Hulkageddon III.

I’m not doing any mining at the moment, and I’m certainly not going to go gank any hulks, but the drama is certainly entertaining.

Looks like Tyrannis is being deployed tomorrow.

I’m not playing EVE anymore…  And I’m not sure how interested I’d be in Tyrannis, since it focuses more on planetary goodies…  But it still looks cool.  Makes me want to re-subscribe…

I think I mentioned a little while back that I’d canceled my EVE account.

I haven’t really had time to play.  I’ve been busy with the new job and whatnot…  Hardly had any time to log in and play…  And when I did log in, I wasn’t too thrilled with the state of my corporation and alliance…  So I was less likely to log in again soon…

There wasn’t much point in paying my $15/month just to queue up new skills from time to time.

Of course, now that I’m no longer playing, Tyrannis is coming out…

I wonder if someone at CCP is doing this just to torment me?

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!

Corporate Mission Night, Part 2, didn’t happen last night.  I didn’t really plan on attending, since it was TV Night…  But I was logged in and doing my own thing for a few hours last night anyway.  And as the 8:00 mark approached, there were only three of us in corp. chat.  I don’t know if anyone else showed up later…  But the place was looking pretty dead when I logged off for the night.

Of course, TV Night didn’t happen either.  Like I said yesterday, there really isn’t anything that makes Wednesday nights special anymore.  There aren’t any special shows on, and we can watch the shows we like whenever we want.

So, Terri and I wound up reading last night.  Just curled up in bed and cracked open a couple books.

I finished reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes yesterday…  Every single story except for The Adventure of the Final Problem seemed familiar to me.  I’m still not sure how I managed to miss that story before…

So, now I’m on to a new book – Already Dead by Charlie Huston.

It isn’t really the kind of book I’d normally read…  It’s kind of a detective story with vampires, and a bit of a noir feel to it…

But it was free on Barnes & Noble, and it looked interesting, so I grabbed it and gave it a try.

So far I’m enjoying it quite a bit.

Wednesday…  The week is half-over.  Or at least it will be by the end of the day.

It seems like this week is simultaneously flying by at incredible speed, and dragging along at a slothful pace.

The days have been passing fairly quickly…  There’s been plenty to keep me busy.  Plenty of stuff that didn’t or couldn’t get done while I was on vacation.  So there’s been plenty of clean-up.  I’ve barely had time to sit down at my desk to check my email and finish work orders.

At the same time, however, it seems like an eternity until this weekend.  After a week of doing what I wanted when I wanted to do it, holding to a work schedule seems like torture.  I can’t wait for Friday to roll around and give me back some of that freedom.

I’m also feeling a bit under-the-weather…  My nose is congested, some sinus pressure, headaches…  I don’t know if it’s just some generic winter crud, or if I’m actually coming down with something.  But it isn’t making work any more pleasant.

I’ve been re-reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes on my nook…  I’m not sure if I ever read The Adventure of the Final Problem before…  I don’t really recall it, but it seems to me that I read just about every Sherlock Holmes story there is.    And most of the other stories in The Memoirs are familiar to me…  Maybe I couldn’t track it down at the time?  Or maybe it wasn’t that memorable?

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been reading, on my nook.

It’s been working great so far.  I’m carrying my nook with me virtually everywhere I go – it’s just small enough to fit in the breast-pocket of my winter coat.  And it looks innocent enough for me to read at work and at client sites while I’m waiting for something to download/process/copy/whatever.  Not like whipping out a paperback novel and announcing to everyone present that you’re just twiddling your thumbs.

I’m a little disappointed with the microSD card slot on the nook though…  I intended to use an SD card to transfer manuals from my work computer to the nook for use as reference material…  But that just isn’t going to work.  The microSD card slot is simply not that accessible on the nook.

I guess I’ll have to get my hands on a couple microUSB cables…  Leave one at work, one at home, maybe throw one in my briefcase…  Might make syncing the thing a little easier.  Might make it possible to use it for reference material at work.

Last night was Corporate Mission Night – Part The First.  Everyone in the corporation showed up in Umokka and ran missions.  The corporate tax rate was set to 95% and all the proceeds went to funding corporate stuff.

We were originally planning on running some L5 missions, but folks didn’t want to lose standing with empire factions, so we ran L4s instead.

There were about 10 of us in the fleet…  And we were using EVE Voice…  Not a whole ton of chit-chat going on, but there was some…  It was very nice, however, to be participating in something bigger than myself again.  I’ve always enjoyed raids and fleets and group activities.  It seems to me that’s the whole point of playing a MMOG.

We ran through about four missions last night.  With the tax rate, and the number of missiles I lobbed at enemy ships, plus the loss of a Warrior II drone, I probably lost money last night…  But the standings gains were terrific.  I can now access some L3 agents for the Caldari Navy, so I won’t have to keep running those dreadful L2 missions all the time.  And I’m only a mission or two away from L3 agents in the Corporate Police Force.

Tonight is the second Corporate Mission Night.  Tonight the missions will be run for personal gain…  The tax rate will be back down to 5%, and any salvage will be split between the fleet members.  I’d love to participate, but tonight is TV Night, so I don’t think I’ll be playing much EVE.

Of course…  TV Night isn’t what it used to be…

Used to be that we’d scurry upstairs at 9:00 every Wednesday night to watch a new episode of Ghost Hunters and/or MythBusters, and then a re-run or two, or maybe something else interesting on TV.  But then we got the DVR, and we didn’t really need to scurry, or even watch them on Wednesday…  And then they started showing Ghost Hunters Academy and Ghost Hunters International instead of Ghost Hunters…  And now they’ve moved MythBusters to Monday night…

We’ve got some new shows to watch instead of Ghost Hunters re-runs and spin-offs…  Terri likes Intervention, and Hoarders is always interesting…  But none of it falls conveniently together on a single day like it used to.  Of course, with the DVR, that doesn’t really matter…  We can watch what we want, when we want to…  But that sort of ruins TV Night as a special, planned, weekly occurrence.