V for Vindicator

Well, actually it stands for Vendetta, but since I watched it last night, I felt compelled to find the monologue with all the V's in. Here it is. It's ace.

"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only veredict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V".

I'M BACK !!!!1111one

New blogs are on ze way. Since I last posted, there was an EVE meet in london, a BoB meet in Copenhagen and Blasters got a buff. FOR THE WIN.

I shall be blogging about some or all of these in the near future.

<3

(not) Dianabolic's socks.

Much as I hate agreeing with Dian, he's dead right:

(22:56:13) (@fitz) i smell a blog
(22:56:19) (@fitz) or is that Dian's socks ?
(22:58:58) (@Cor) prolly the socks
(22:59:59) —› nick: (haze-away) is now known as (haze)
(23:01:45) (@Dian) my socks would make a great blog
(23:01:50) (@Dian) so it is in fact both

His socks would make a great blog. However this, dear reader, is not that blog. This is an entirely different blog. This blog is about character creation. A subject that is close to the hearts of EVE addicts across the globe today as CCP release “The Blood Patch”. Oooh patch, maybe they'll fix blasters. No such fucking luck. Here, let me direct you folks to a glaring gap in the patch notes.

Drones and Weapons
 Drone targetting systems have received a firmware update to improve their target selection processes. They will now pick targets which have been directly involved in aggression with their owner as a result from their owner (or one of his possessions) attacking the target, or the target attacking their owner or one of his possessions.
 Drone MWD usage has been corrected. They will not 'forget' they are equipped with a MWD if a new target is assigned.
 "Move to Drone Bay" option for drones in your cargo hold will work only when you are within range of a ship hangar array.
 Mining drones now stop mining and return correctly when so ordered.


 All tech 2 turret ammo now require R.A.M.-Ammunition Tech instead of R.A.M.-Weapon Tech.

Can you see it ? Just after the bit where it says mining drones stop etc... What they failed to put in there was “large blasters have ceased to suck. Their CPU requirements have been reduced and tracking improved.”

Anyway, back to character creation. CCP have added hot azn chicks. WOOT. So everyone has run out to get the 6 month cheapo second (or third, or fourth) account for not as much money. In my case it’s a third. The power of two they call it, if you ask me it sounds like an advert for a Gillette razor but what do I know about PR ?

Last time this deal came around I made an alt with the intention of using him as a spy. We have to plan along way ahead in order to create maximum forum hatred :< Unfortunately I became so fond of Mr Staberinde that he ended up in Evolution. This time I’m determined not to do that. It’s boring learning skill training all the way and stuff. However I suppose at some point I’ll have to put her in a couple of corps. Talk to some strangers. I mean, what corporation in its right mind is going to take a six month old character with no employment history ? It’ll be fun tho’ I think having a new character. Do a few missions, chat to some people in local and give out advice to nubs. I was debating whether to support her with a bit of cash from Fi T’Zeh but I’ve decided against that. I’ll buy her the learning skills and then leave it at that.

So once you’ve spent an hour working out the hottest chick you can, where next. I looked at the skills forum the other day and it scared the living crap out of me. People spend far too much time working out the minutae of skill point distribution, optimal training patterns and stuff. Which is fab, cos it means I don’t have to!

Seriously when I made my first two chars I gave almost no thought to attribute distribution other than to balance them as much as possible and to have the best looking character I could!! Fortunately that was a more sensible move than specialising since later CCP messed with attribute priorities.

This thread is a rough guide to everything, and I’ll be following it very closely with the development of XXXXXXXX (you didn’t think I’d actually post the name of my alt spy character did you????). I haven’t even decided whether to post the pic. I really want to, but I guess that wouldn’t be too tactical.

You know what though. I just noticed that YET AGAIN, the coolest looking characters have the gayest stats. I just spent aaaages making a minmatar chick with no hair, only to notice she had a willpower of 3. How retarded is that ?

So what’s to look forward to? A new account, a new character and maybe change of gaming experience whilst I duck and dive in the world of griefers, scammers and nubbins that is Empire space. I wouldn’t be surprised if I start to long for 0.0 after a while. And when that happens, I’ll just jump on Fi T’Zeh and kill shit. Result. Definitely time to log on again.

See you out there fagets.

The Big Newby Corp

So then, time for another exclusive glimpse into the inner workings of BoB. This time, an insightful comment on that alcohol soused bunch of loonies that we like to call BNC.

I wanted to start this blog by saying that if I wasn’t in Evolution, I’d want to be in BNC. But unfortunately, if I wasn’t in Evolution, I’d never have discovered EVE, so I wouldn’t be in anything. But you get the picture.

But what is the BNC and why would I want to be in it? I believe, but I could be wrong, that the moniker “Big Newby Corp” was first coined at the point in the GNW where the BNC just started to appear on my Radar. There was this kind of sick standing joke amongst the less generous pilots of Evolution, who at that time were still “the best of the best of the best of the best SIR !” which basically involved asking in corp chat how many BNC battleships / indies / whatever had got ganked that day in BKG followed by “oh, about 20” and then much ROFL’ing and grumbling about ruining our stats etc.

Looking back on that now, it seems pretty farcical that one of EVE’s premier PvP outfits was the butt of such mockery, but you’ve got to start somewhere I suppose and it’s a great tribute to BL, DG, Coronor, and others that the BNC is where it is now. Firmly at the top of the food chain.

But even back then amongst the mockery I had a great deal of time for the attitude of the BNC. And gaming to me is a lot about attitude. I’ve always played games with competitive gamers, but I myself am NOT a hugely competitive person. My HW team, Freelance, which I’ve mentioned before, were the shizzle, we owned collectively. But I certainly didn’t, I just got on with them and hung out. The same to an extent was true with Evolution. We’re a hugely competitive bunch, we play to win, and we feel defeat horribly keenly. Fortunately defeat is rare for us, but we were, and still are, disinclined to take risks. The BNC on the other hand, seemed not to give a shit. Losing ? What’s that ? Is that what it’s called when you don’t get a fight ? An attractive attitude to someone who’s blog is by-lined “zooming in on the explosions…” Dying solo in a BS is still the most heinous crime an Evolution pilot can commit. Do it whilst TWD is online, and god help you. I’m not saying that BNC don’t care about dying, I just get the impression it’s a less grievous offence.

One reason I think for this difference in attitudes is the contrasting corporate models. If you draw a line, on a piece of paper and write “Thatcher” at one end, and “Lenin” at the other. You get the idea of how the models work. So, just imagine Andy as Maggie, Stevie as Ken Clark, Molle as Valdimir Illych and Dafuzz as Trotsky and you’re set. If you really want you can see RKK in the middle somewhere with Galavet as Tony Blair, and DBP as Gordon Brown. Great fun !

That’s a round about way of saying that in Evolution, every ship is partially funded by everyone. So if you lose your Megathron by, for instance, smart bombing a station in Diaderi, you’ve not just wasted your own isk / time, but everyone else’s also. There’s a certain amount of guilt associated with such acts or foolishness, not that I would know having never done anything that dumb. No Sireeee.

The other attractive thing about BNC is that they’re a largely British corp. That’s not intended in any kind of flag waving sense, but I’ve always enjoyed British gamers not giving a shit attitude, but sadly never really been in a gaming group with them. In fact I used to mock one of them, which is amusing. Ironically they were called BoB also, it stood for Best of British. They played Homeworld but not as well as me, which kind of made their name pointless. Bob-bashing predates EvE by some time !

So BNC, capitalist, blood thirsty, and erm, sort of disciplined. I once had a moan in the BoB directors IRC channel about how some BNC can’t stfu on TS. The retort was short and to the point. “Try saying ‘target’ and then see how quickly they shut up”. It sums them up perfectly. I don’t really need to talk about sensor boosters do I ? I mean everyone knows they’re all Caldari wh0res just so they can have extra mid-slots, right ?

BNC also has this clever scam going whereby they conned a bunch of people into making all their stuff for them. I’m not sure what the origins of BNC.E are. Maybe someone else can fill that in. Are they former BNC members who turned soft, or people purpose hired, or a mixture of both ? I know some of them are definitely former BNC guys. Anyway, apart from wandering around delve getting beat up by gankers, they appear to have grown some teeth. The carebears bite back, good on you lads says I!!!

Road Trip !!!!!!11111111111111oneoneoneleven.

This blog is long, and as entertaining as I could make it given the subject matter. There is a summary provided at the end, for the lazy.............Enjoy !!

The pointless Pre-amble

Well despite not actually playing any EvE I'm still reading the whorums, posting smack and winding up Blacklight (or Fatlight as I'm going to call him from now on). To quote the man himself:

“Hush peasant and update your blog please, you're less effective than I am and you have no excuse.”

Now I've two main complaints about this politely phrased request. Firstly, how does one judge how “effective” a blog is ? Does it have to be particularly self important ? Does it have to be monitored by the “Journalists” who write The Enquirer? Or maybe it has to be shut down by an oppressive regime...

Andy's blog doesn't come under any of the above, granted he has written more words than me but then he's a fat git and clearly has more to say than I do. Admittedly most of his content is relevant and interesting, but I'm not aware that those things have ever been true of any of the so called “popular blogs” that are mass-read today.

My second problem is that I DO have an excuse. There's always a reason not to do something, Jesus Christ I'm a journalist. I spend my life coming up with excuses not to do stuff, like attend press conferences or meet boring industry nobodies who want to raise their profile. Do not think to lecture me sir, on the art of making excuses.

So, why then in all my righteous indignation, have I bowed to peer pressure and updated this great vessel of gibberish? Well I can tell you, that it's because I wanted to, and absolutely NOT because Andy has prompted me. Honest.

That bit up there, you can probably skip actually, put it down as another pitiful attempt at humour. But ahaha, if you got far enough to know you can skip it, you've read it already.

The point

On to the point. Yes, the road trip - as referenced in my entry about Krystal's Kids. Actually this kind of ties in with why I'm not playing EVE, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

So, basicly, sometime before Christmas I decided I needed a new computer. I'm sure most of you understand, as committed computer gamers, that the word “needed” is probably more accurately replaced with “wanted”. If you play EVE almost exclusively, as I have done for about 4 years now, you don't need a computer better specified than my previous rig. In fact, you probably can get away with a lot worse. This is actually the second time I've upgraded since beta. The first rig i played EVE on was as follows.

Athlon Thunderbird 1400
Abit KG7 Mobo
Geforce 3
512 RAM.

When I applied for the beta I actually lied about my graphics card on my tech spec (omg hax) to make sure I would get in, then scrimped and saved for the GF3. That rig above was absolutely fine tbh. It played Homeworld, EVE and RtCW. But then it blew up. That's a propper excuse to upgrade. I NEEDED a new PC. Which was comprised thusly :

Athlon XP 2800
Abit AT7 Max 2 mobo
Geforce FX5600
(Ugh I bought it utterly out of sync with the market, the 5700 came about a week later and did about 40% more performance for the same money. That's what happens when you don't do your homework)
1Gb RAM.

Now aside from having a poor price / performance GFX card that rig has served me very well since about 2003. At the time, the processor / motherboard and RAM quantity were pretty much bleeding edge. But, as I said, before Christmas I got itchy wallet strings. Now you'd think that was because I had spare cash, but no, i don't need cash to get an itchy wallet. Credit cards for the win. Now what made the itch worse, was that Alasse had let slip that he ran an IT services company, and it transpired he'd be more than happy to get me some good prices on bits. Bargain !
So I spent about a month plotting what I was going to buy, working out how much it would cost me, before slapping myself for thinking about spending money I didn't have.

Fast forward to Christmas week, envelope arrives with expected pay cheque. “Dear staff blah blah CHRISTMAS BONUS” ZOMG, never got one of those before. How much? one thousand English pounds you say? Interesting. Now a sensible, sane person would think “ooh, i shall put that in the bank towards stuff for the flat i'm planning to move into this year.” A grand buys like a nice king sized bed, a posh mattress and a couple of chairs. Or maybe a decent home entertainment system. However, the nerd in me quickly drowned such thoughts, and noticed a more than passing similarity between my Christmas bonus, and the price Alasse had quoted...Eeexcellent smithers.

So, I order the parts on a Tuesday (I think it was tuesday) And then do my best Bubbles impression for three days “Is it there yet? is it there yet? is it there yet?” By Friday it's arrived and Rob is now gloating, but is busy and unable to get it into DHL on the friday. So Saturday he half jokingly says, “If you're that fussed, come and get the fucking thing. To which I reply....OK ! Hop in the car and do Tunbridge Wells to Warrington in about 3 hours. Not too shabby. So there we are, in Alasse's gaff, boxes of computer bits aplenty. Out it all comes, more packaging than you can safely shake a stick at. Slap it all together, under his watchful eye (bah, anti-static, what's that ??) Press the power button and then........lights come on, fan spins up and............NO BEEP. Oh well, any computer that works first time isn't a real computer in my book. So, fiddle with a few things, unplug some components, wiggle them about and try again. NO BEEP. By this time it's about 11pm so we get a pizza in, steal some of his bro's beer (and his gfx card to see if that's the problem) and try again. No fucking beep. Eventually we give up, play some EVE and hit the sack about 3am. I hope you lot relate to the “tossing and turning worrying about problems” syndrome. My grands worth of computer equipment doesn't work. Fucking bollocks.

Come the morning, we try calling Bubbles. Who is a genius. He suggests a bunch of stuff which I try but fails to work, leading him to the conclusion that either my CPU or Mobo is fucked. Neither is an attractive prospect. Then finally we phone “Rob's mate Dave”. Now I've experience of people's mates called Dave. They are built like a brick shit house and of limited expertise when it comes to computers. If I'm perfectly honest by this time I didn't have much hope that Dave would be any use. He arrives, pokes about, shakes his head and can't seem to find a problem. We're about to pile into a car and go blag a new Mobo, when he fingers a power socket. “There should be something in there.” He says. Dread sets in as Rob and I look at each other accusingly. Digging out a 12v ATX Cable from the bundle of “spare” outputs from the PSU, I plug it in, press the button and Bingo. She rides !! Woo fucking hoo, and all because I didn't plug it in. What a tosser. Install windows load EVE and burn back down the M6 in another 3 hour speed session.

So now I have this :

AMD64 4000
ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe
Nvidia 7800GT
2GB RAM
etc.

Which is miiiiiles more than you need to play EVE. But does open one up to the possibility of playing “other games” as they are called. Like BF2 at maximum settings and resolution, which is nice.

The executive summary

So in summary, the reason I'm not playing eve is that I got a Christmas Bonus.

Good night.

I am not dead....

....Merely playing some BF2. Which is fun, and has no lag, or any WCS. I'm not actually missing EvE yet either. However the Yarrrdware went in this week, which is quite exciting and so once a) the servers have settled in and b) CCP fix blasters, i'll come gallumphing back.

<3 fitz

Requesting Krystal's Kids

Ok so this one's a little later than I originally anticipated / promised, but I've done two trips up the M40 and back in the past 4 days (see "Road Trip!!!111oneoneleven" blog to come soon™).

When i wrote my original gushing spew about how wonderful BoB was and how I loved everyone I made reference to some "deleted" material about the corps that make up BoB. I've had more of a think about it, and been pestered a bit and hope that what comes out now is a bit more interesting than what I wrote before. Think of the next couple of entries as a bonus DVD with a Directors cut and some deleted scenes or something.

Reikoku

What's in a name ? Well apparently this one was suggested by someone from Jericho, so let's not dwell on it eh. Goddam tree huggers. Actually I kinda like their ideals (whatever they actually are) so they might get their own blog one day.

WTF my blog has been derailed already. Possibly too much coffee this morning.

Ok soooo yeah, RKK n stuff. They're cool. Thing I like about them is that they give off this impression of knowing what the fuck is going on. In fact I reckon that a good portion of BoB's membership actually believe it. I mean they have directors with clearly defined responsibilities n shit. Simple, if you want shit loads of POS putting up over a weekend then talk to Alasse cos he's POS Director. If you want someone to lead a gang, look no further than the one man army that is DmZ - Military Director. If you want someone to loose his rag and mute people left right and centre on TS talk to Galavet.

That bit was humour.

For the asleep, or those unfamiliar with RKK's directorial structure, they have job titles and generally they stick to them. But the great thing about RKK is that basicly everyone can do everything at a push. Flexibility for the win. They also have a kind of universal forum wh0re cum suicidal gang leader cum former CEO to pick up the pieces when things get tight. RKK's idea of a dreadnaught might be 15 mining barges strapped together with Cyleramic Fibres (i'm not a carebear so I don't know how to spell cyleramic) but if you need 4 medium bubbles at short notice, or a gang of rabid pvp'ers with good TS discipline and lots of guns or some T2 modules in NOL- they are the folks to ask. Just don't lend them anything (<3 Dian).

I don't actually remember when RKK appeared in my EVE consciousness. It was probably some kind of Mollian (which is like Machievellian but more evil) plot, but they just kind of appeared in gangs n shit and hung out in H-PA. Maybe their arrival was less obvious due to not appearing on the losses section of the killboard so often (see "Big Newbie Corp" :P). I'm assured (by rkk members) that they have a long and glorious history of being mercs n stuff, despite being packed full of "reformed" pirates. (Hi Val !!)

Of the three corps I perceive RKK to have the most corp "discipline". Certainly, not turning up to corp ops will get you kicked out of RKK faster than any of the other three. I hesitate to say that this is because the leadership is less emotionally attached to most of its members, but I guess at the moment having recently gone through a large expansion it takes time to build those bonds, and also to sort out who fits, and who doesn't.

Well, that was less boring than the last time I wrote it but meh, it's done now so maybe dbp will leave me alone.

p.s. note to self, use less parentheses next time (that's brackets to you uneducated types).