EVE and I – Part 05 – Silent Night

When we last left our interpid capsuleer I was complaining that I wasnt really getting the return I wanted in my mining efforts. Unfortunately while I’ve done a number of things to address that I havent had a huge amount of success. On the other hand I have killed a lot of pirates, a lot a lot. So when I logged off the last time I was ready for a bit of a break from the game. But the next day (well technically later that day) Patrick, as always, pulled me back in. He needed help with a mission and I kindly decided to help him out. Of course the fact that I owned a destroyer entirely bereft of armaments or any kind of defense meant he was going to have to wait a little while for that to happen. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Part 04 – The dark of the night

Last night’s plan was to post the previous blog entry and go to bed. Both of which I did. Unfortunately a tag team of caffeine overconsumption and a storm blowing outside conspired to help sleep elude me. After giving up on sleeping for a bit I figured I’d just log-in to EVE to do one or two things. Which lead to me getting to sleep the wrong side of six, which is what sees me in work with slightly over an hours sleep. Thankfully it’s basically all exam supervision this morning so I should be able to survive until I can get a taxi home and garner some proper rest (well a quick nap actually as I’ve stuff to do this afternoon). I’m unsure of the wisdom of playing in the wee hours in the morning. Well that’s not entirely true, depending on what you do you should be fine, more or less as long as you don’t do what I did. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Part 03 – Mining and Hauling and Pirates, Oh My!

Back in my first post about EVE I mentioned that I have a habit of indulging in theorycrafting, often tool assisted, when it comes to MMO. I thought I’d get a little further than four days in before I fell prey to it once more. I clearly thought wrong. EVE has a reputation for having a near vertical learning curve. I’d actually thought that reputation a little undeserved until I ran fight off the edge of that fucking cliff. So now I’m in freefall trying to figure out what to do. Continue reading…

EVE and I – Part 01 – Into the great wide open

Being an account of one man’s virign experience with EVE Online. My first exposure to MMO’s was FFXI on its European release. I walked (like some kind of savage) from Glenwood down to PC World to pick it up after having a quick go of the copy my brother Patrick bought. I have to say it was pretty great at the time, an almost entirely novel multiplayer experience. But it was hardly flawless, the punishing xp loss on death and the hunt for random drops (fuck you second job quest) marred the exprience for me. Still it was either play that or attend class, so I did a semesters worth of assignments in a week or two (the first semester of the add-on BA in Humanities was a fucking joke, easy mode shit, sort of regret abandoning my stonking results to jump to a MSc) and settled in to explore Vana’diel. Continue reading…

Front Mission 5 – Brief thoughts on emulation and a preliminary Lets Play

I like giant robots, real or super. I like role-playing games. I like turn based computer games. Unsurprisingly I am a fan of the Front Mission series, a series of turn based strategy rpg’s from Square Enix featuring a world only slightly in advance of our own where mobile armoured frames known as “Wanzers” have become an integral part of armed conflicts. The mecha in the series fall strongly into the “real robot” category, as represented by stuff like VOTOMS, Mobile Police PATLABOR, etc. The series was renowned for its complex storylines dealing with conflict between multiple morally ambiguous political entities and for the depth of its gameplay. Unfortunately the series saw few releases in the west (Front Mission 3 on the PSX, Front Mission 4 on the PS2 and a port of Front Mission for the DS) and the lead developer of the series has since left Square Enix so no new games are likely to be forthcoming. Though there have been a number of fan trasnlastions (some of which are ongoing). Continue reading…

[WIP] Solium Infernum – The Greatest Game – Turn 11 – 20 – Purple lady Diplomacy

During the first ten turns or so we had no real idea how to play the game. Entering the double digit turns we began to grasp how the game was played, some more than others (Ha, ha, I read the manual fools!). Though my increased knowledge did little to help me gain prestige or slow Simon’s meteoric rise to the top. However, after ten turns of scraping and scrimping I was finally ready to make use of my praetor and thanks to reading the manual I had a solid idea of how to go about doing so. Continue reading…

[WIP] Solium Infernum – The Greatest Game – Turn 01 – 10 – Dipping a toe in damnation

Well my first every multiplayer game of Solium Infernum has just hit Turn 20 and in the parlance of the streets (where I grew up, yo!) – Shit just got real. Everything has kicked off as all the potential demonic rulers turn on one another. So now that decisions have been made, and because I posses as much skill in long term planning as an Anglo Irish Bank manager, I feel it’s safe to reveal the comedy of errors that were my initial ten turns (also Simon’s so far in the lead I cant imagine revealing this will do much damage). Continue reading…

[WIP] Solium Infernum – The Greatest Game – Turn 0 – Prelude to Naughtiness

Well as anyone who is lucky enough to read my facebook status updates knows I became rather enamored with the idea of indulging in a multiplayer game of Solium Infernum after reading the excellent series of play diaries on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. With hope in hand I sought out willing partners among my friends, but all my friends are bastards and crushed my fragile dreams. “Oh I’m too busy to even say no Mick I’ll just leave you sitting alone in your dark room sobbing and waiting for some kind of response”, bunch of cunts, almost makes me feel glad that I’ve been slipping infected blood into their food for months. Anyhow, my righteous retribution aside, I finally managed to ensnare two of my siblings and thus the game was, as Holmes would say, afoot! I bet he said stuff like that because he was out of his tits on smack all the time. Continue reading…