They will live for a score of years

I was listening to Leo Laporte and Paul Thurrott in episode 170 of Windows Weekly in the Twit Network.

In a previous rant/post of mine I mentioned the imminent death of the xbox360 and PS3 gaming platforms, which as it turns out is incorrect.

So in that TWiT episode they said both platforms will have another five years of official life left, for a total life of ten years.

So this post is to correct that error of mine, however, I still firmly think DUST514 will sink without trace which will be a shame for a variety of reasons.

The mission wall

Yes I finally hit the mission wall, again.  We were doing AE or something and we discovered that none of us were paying any attention to the mission at hand.  I was reading on another computer about the Dakota wars in North America during the late nineteenth century.  Another member was playing Bejewelled and the third was playing with his new Samsung smart phone.

None of us were actually using the bulk of our attention to mission.

After we discovered this together and we all admitted to it we all agreed the missions, while required for ISK making, were killing us and the love for the game.

So last night we went low sec roaming, eventually.

For a corp that is supposed to go low sec roaming often we found that none of us actually had ships fitted for the task. So with us all fitting out ships and waiting for a member to come back from afk one hour went by before we could move out, annoying but should be better next time.

So eventually we all arrive in our high sec jumping off point for the entry to low sec, I send the scout in, who is learning, and get intel of a Drake sitting on the gate and about eight more people in local.  I ask the scout to see if the locals are in the same corp as the Drake, so I am then given all sorts of information except what I asked for.  So after asking for the corp information a couple more times, the scout at this stage has warped away from the gate at my request, we jump in anyway.

Fail scout.

The Drake is no longer there but a heap of my old corp mates from Sto-vo-kor are the ones in local.  Knowing how these guys work that Drake was a bait trap and it was good we didn’t try and shoot him up.

So they are camping one of the two other gates in the system, we chat in local once they discover I am in local but we are also trying to find out where they are as we might be chatting but that could also be the precursor to an attack.

It all seems good, the threat of attack seems to diminish, but we are running out of time as DT is approaching, we say our goodbyes and leave system.

Heading a few more jumps into low sec and it would seem one of their scouts is following us, or maybe just going to the same place, as our destination system is soon crawling with Russians bent on mayhem and destruction, too many for us which means the night is going to be a wash.

At least we were not missioning though.

Twenty minutes to go and we make our way out, leaving low sec with no issues, and then the private chat windows chat appearing.  The end result is unknown at the moment but we could be going blue with the alliance they are in, or perhaps even joining the alliance.

So while our roam was a bust it may have been a very successful night after all.

Stealth Bombers!

So on the blog A Merry Life and a Short One I read an article about stealth bombers which is well worth a read, so here is the link:

Stealth Bombers

 

There we go, another post done, this is easy!

PLEX, Botting and You!

So this week we get the news that some numbnut has undocked in a small ship from Jita 4-4 with approx 70+ PLEX is his hold, a local has scanned him, destroyed the ship and all the PLEX was destroyed.  The approx total value was $1300, US dollars I assume but cbf checking into that some more.

That is quite a large amount of money for the average gamer to be playing around with, so with suspicions of more behind it I did some snooping around.

Botting seems to be rampant in Eve at the moment.  From the various comments on the forums and also chatting with some people I know they have said it appears to be on the rise. 

Botting is the control of your in game character by a third party program with the intention of levelling that character up or making in game money, which can then be exchanged for out of game money, Real Life (RL) money using a variety of methods.

So one of the botting programs, it would seem, looks for the name of the character being mentioned in local chat and then if the name is seen the program either shuts off leaving that person floating in space or it disconnects the game.  I suspect a variety of options are available to the botting player and the most popular one chosen is the former.

So a small game has developed where you mention the name of the people in local channel in suspected botting systems and then see how many either disappear or shut down their ships for a period of time.  I can see this making a very short progression to a drinking game with much success.

So where does the ISK go?  At the moment the ISK generated is still in game currency and can be used for the many things available in game, but if the botting is being used for RL money generation then that fake money has to somehow become real.

One of the ways could be the selling of ships to another character at heavily discounted prices.  So it could go like this.  Person A wants a fleet of cheap ships, so they pay Person B, the botter, some RL money via Paypal to provide those ships.  Then Person B sells the ships in game to Person A via contracts or even direct in station trade at a discounted rate, but probably not too low to attract attention from CCP.  Person B obtained the ships from selling the minerals, mission loot and ISK from missions (they can and are all being botted) and then made them available to Person A.

I’m sure other examples exist.

Every once in a while CCP bans a swathe of accounts and, so they say, the botting stops for a while, it would appear this needs to happen more often than it has as the market is being artificially manipulated by these outside forces.

Deploy The Ban Hammer.

Waste or Waste

To state the obvious, waste is waste.  Waste here or waste there, it’s all still waste.  So with this in mind I was thinking about World of Darkness (WoD), DUST514 and Duke Nukem Forever (DNF).
One of the problems with DNF, apart for that acronym also spelling out Did Not Finish in sports land, are the changes that had to be made to the game as time passed and technology changed.  From memory the game was torn down and reborn at least two times and eventually, as we all know, the weight of its past caused it to implode.
According to CCP DUST514 is almost ready, I would like to see the game released, some calls have been made to put the game on hold, fix bugs with Eve Online and then get back to DUST514.
This will not work as the lesson of DNF shows us, DUST514 would become old, the graphics engine outdated and we are approaching the end of life for the XBOX360 and PS3.
However it should not be rushed either.  CCP are in the unenviable position of juggling three games, one an established hit, if such a term can be used for the niche crowd it has attracted.   WoD which may find appeal with the Twilight crowd and DUST514 which could go either way.
So the waste issue is this, do we waste the development that has already been made on DUST514 and others or just get them done, as they tie in with each other anyway, and move on?
The problem with DUST514, as mentioned previously, is the current and probably future glut of FPS games on gaming consoles (Wii not included as a gaming console as it’s in a different league).  Why should the ADHD, sugar addicted, twitchy FPS gamer look at DUST514?  Surely those people are not suited to the much more sedate, planned, lifestyle of Eve Online so not much crossover will happen there.
Sharing technology is what it’s all about people!  Incarna (Walking in stations) for Eve Online, DUST514 and World of Darkness are all going to share the same graphics engine.
I have a plan.  WoD can be set on the surface of a planet in Eve Online and Eve pilots can access this planet in all its black nail polish glory, so I can stab one of those fuckers with my spoon!
Gives them something to be emo about.