Skills
Skills in EVE Online are confusing to get started with. I was, and to a point still am, confused about which skills I should be training. I know in the long run that training my Learning based skills will reduce training times, but that makes for a pretty dull experience in the beginning.
My strategy so far has been to train several skills to level one while I am logged on. They are quick and easy to train, so I am online to switch the next skill active. When I have to log, I set my longer level 3+ skills to train. Luckily, I have plenty of skills that take 7-10 hours to train; perfect for work and sleeping.
100,000 Skill Points
I crossed the 100,000 skill point barrier earlier today. That meant updating my clone. Fortunately I am still well in the positive cash flow and it was no more than a drop in the bucket.
Unfortunately, the only station with cloning capabilities was six jumps away. I probably just missed one closer, but I am a newb and newbs make mistakes. I have a clone that saves up to 120,000 skill points, but I am by far in no rush to break it in.
Goal
I have a goal now: to train to Spaceship Command 3, Gallente Frigate 4, and Gallente Cruiser 1. Then I will look into purchasing a cruiser to fly around in. If anyone has any better ideas let me know!
Update: 8 Jul, 2007 - Edited post and applied labels.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
My first day in EVE Online
My first day in EVE Online was uneventful, but still satisfying. We'll start out with character creation and finish with a new ship. Being a newb has never felt so good.
Race: Gallente
Bloodline: Gallente
Ancestry: Immigrants
School: Federal Navy Academy
Department: Operations
Field: Command
Specialty: Advanced Command
Int: 8, Cha: 8, Per: 10, Mem: 6, WP: 6
My adventure into the vast space of EVE Online started with a wonderful tutorial. It takes you over the basics of space flight, the UI, chat features, docking stations, and eventually into advanced space flight. Without the tutorial I doubt I would ever figure out how to play this game. It was so good that I may repeat it just to catch things I may have missed.
During the tutorial I spent a good amount of time goofing around and basically being a newb. Luckily there is a chat channel filled with helpful people that like to laugh. So far this is one of the better newb experiences I've had in a game and at the same time this is one of the toughest to learn games I've ever played in the MMORPG space.
My first combat experience was enjoyable as I fumbled accross advanced commands to just target and shoot things. It seems to be simpler than I am making it out to be, but in EVE you need to learn to fly first before you can get into heavy combat. Therefore I only encountered two combat situations and the first was the tutorial directed one.
The second combat situation had me confused. I had upgraded my newbie ship to a new and improved Gallente Frigate, Atron model. I outfitted it with two new guns filled with real ammo instead of the newb gun. Even riding high with this new bad ass strapped to a rocket I came into the fight with 5 on 1 odds. I was to destroy a Drone Silo defended by 5 drones and two stationary guns.
After a couple near death experiences that forced me to warp out of the fight I came back and barely managed to destroy the silo escaping the drones with only 1/4 of my ship still intact. I warped back to my agent (quest giver) flaming the entire way for a fat paycheck.
Next step: Find a ship buying guide for a newb!
Race: Gallente
Bloodline: Gallente
Ancestry: Immigrants
School: Federal Navy Academy
Department: Operations
Field: Command
Specialty: Advanced Command
Int: 8, Cha: 8, Per: 10, Mem: 6, WP: 6
My adventure into the vast space of EVE Online started with a wonderful tutorial. It takes you over the basics of space flight, the UI, chat features, docking stations, and eventually into advanced space flight. Without the tutorial I doubt I would ever figure out how to play this game. It was so good that I may repeat it just to catch things I may have missed.
During the tutorial I spent a good amount of time goofing around and basically being a newb. Luckily there is a chat channel filled with helpful people that like to laugh. So far this is one of the better newb experiences I've had in a game and at the same time this is one of the toughest to learn games I've ever played in the MMORPG space.
My first combat experience was enjoyable as I fumbled accross advanced commands to just target and shoot things. It seems to be simpler than I am making it out to be, but in EVE you need to learn to fly first before you can get into heavy combat. Therefore I only encountered two combat situations and the first was the tutorial directed one.
The second combat situation had me confused. I had upgraded my newbie ship to a new and improved Gallente Frigate, Atron model. I outfitted it with two new guns filled with real ammo instead of the newb gun. Even riding high with this new bad ass strapped to a rocket I came into the fight with 5 on 1 odds. I was to destroy a Drone Silo defended by 5 drones and two stationary guns.
After a couple near death experiences that forced me to warp out of the fight I came back and barely managed to destroy the silo escaping the drones with only 1/4 of my ship still intact. I warped back to my agent (quest giver) flaming the entire way for a fat paycheck.
Next step: Find a ship buying guide for a newb!
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Now playing EVE Online
I decided to finally take the plunge and journey into the game every MMORPG blogger seems to be enjoying: EVE Online.
So far; so good. I am about done with the tutorial and found it to be very helpful. It is actually the first tutorial that has ever explained to me the chat features in game. The newbie chat channels are full and its great to get help when needed.
The new player guide is also helping me with skill training which is one of EVE Online's mysteries to me still. Slowly, but surely, I am learning the ins and outs of the system.
Thanks to Ethic at Kill Ten Rats blog for the hook up on a few links to character creation guides. No gimp rolling here!
My name in game is Column (Heartless was taken) and you can EVE mail me if you would like.
So far; so good. I am about done with the tutorial and found it to be very helpful. It is actually the first tutorial that has ever explained to me the chat features in game. The newbie chat channels are full and its great to get help when needed.The new player guide is also helping me with skill training which is one of EVE Online's mysteries to me still. Slowly, but surely, I am learning the ins and outs of the system.
Thanks to Ethic at Kill Ten Rats blog for the hook up on a few links to character creation guides. No gimp rolling here!
My name in game is Column (Heartless was taken) and you can EVE mail me if you would like.
Everquest 2 : Trial of the Isle - Fighter and Scout
Everquest 2 is a beautiful game graphically if your computer can handle it. I am fortunate enough to have recently upgraded to a top end rig that can handle the highest settings possible in EQ2. Yes you heard that right; I run EQ2 at Extreme Quality. The game runs perfectly for me and the initial tutorial on the ship at sea is quite impressive.
Still some animations seem to stutter and monsters seem to skip (especially the first set of goblins you are tasked to kill) across the land if they are moving fast. This is something I experienced the last time I played the game and it doesn't detract from the game overall. I've eliminated it being a graphics related slow down because it happens even on lower graphics settings.
I had previously claimed that EQ2 avatars are equivalent to barbie dolls. This still holds true and is highlighted by most of the elf and human related races. I don't know what they were thinking on some of the more human races, but there is so many hair sets that look like shiny plastic!
However, I will admit that some of the more exoctic races look surprisngly good. Also the Erudite with their darker skin tones and Glpyhs look very good. The plastic feel doesn't really come off on these exotic races I guess because of the darker skin tones and more colorful skin patterns.
Fighter - My first character to play was an Erudite fighter. I wanted to start out with a strong and straight forward class. Fighters are exactly that. The first noticeable improvement I found was the run speed was significantly increased on all classes. So much so that I actually think it is too fast, but that is easily forgiven when you are getting from point A to point B in reasonable time periods.
The fighter is definitely dominant on the starter island. There was literally nothing that challenged me that much. I could swath through pairs of equally challenging opponents with little fear of death. My only death came from an unfortunate invisible goblin patrol that hid underneath a bridge.
The basic fighter Heroic Opportunity doesn't look like a fighter attack you would find in most MMORPGs, but it was still very pleasing to the eye. After a bit of trial and error I mastered the actions required to perform it which made me feel good. The only downside I found though was that the HO wasn't much better than just performing my base attacks and often times the monsters died before I had the chance to complete the HO. I assume this is because of the fact these are newbie monsters.
Scout - I chose Wood Elf for my scout because I wanted to see if the plastic hairstyles could be lost in game against the background graphics. Unfortunately they look like plastic in game just like at the character creation screen.
Knowing the layout of the isle better I was able to smoke through the quest lines and to my surprise they were different than the fighter quests. A definite plus. Aiding me in the travel is the pathfinding skill for scouts. It is only an increase of 16%, but it made me feel like I was flying through the isle. I didn't time it, but it didn't seem to take more than a minute to run from end to end of the island.
Scouts also get stealth which really doesn't slow you down that much. I felt like a stealthed bomb waiting to go off as most of my ambush attacks took out most lower level opponents and some equal level enemies in a single shot. Unfortunately this means that completing my scout HO was almost impossible.
I quit after discovering the main cave on the island because no one was around to group for the final encounter. Sad, but I understand that there isn't many newbies around to play with during the daytime hours.
Next up is the priest and mage if I feel like it. While not wow'd off my feet I was amused with the game. I doubt I could get over the seemingly "off" flow of combat and the skippy movement to play further. Yet, I would still highly recommend playing at least the Trial of the Isle as it is free!
Still some animations seem to stutter and monsters seem to skip (especially the first set of goblins you are tasked to kill) across the land if they are moving fast. This is something I experienced the last time I played the game and it doesn't detract from the game overall. I've eliminated it being a graphics related slow down because it happens even on lower graphics settings.
I had previously claimed that EQ2 avatars are equivalent to barbie dolls. This still holds true and is highlighted by most of the elf and human related races. I don't know what they were thinking on some of the more human races, but there is so many hair sets that look like shiny plastic!
However, I will admit that some of the more exoctic races look surprisngly good. Also the Erudite with their darker skin tones and Glpyhs look very good. The plastic feel doesn't really come off on these exotic races I guess because of the darker skin tones and more colorful skin patterns.
Fighter - My first character to play was an Erudite fighter. I wanted to start out with a strong and straight forward class. Fighters are exactly that. The first noticeable improvement I found was the run speed was significantly increased on all classes. So much so that I actually think it is too fast, but that is easily forgiven when you are getting from point A to point B in reasonable time periods.
The fighter is definitely dominant on the starter island. There was literally nothing that challenged me that much. I could swath through pairs of equally challenging opponents with little fear of death. My only death came from an unfortunate invisible goblin patrol that hid underneath a bridge.
The basic fighter Heroic Opportunity doesn't look like a fighter attack you would find in most MMORPGs, but it was still very pleasing to the eye. After a bit of trial and error I mastered the actions required to perform it which made me feel good. The only downside I found though was that the HO wasn't much better than just performing my base attacks and often times the monsters died before I had the chance to complete the HO. I assume this is because of the fact these are newbie monsters.
Scout - I chose Wood Elf for my scout because I wanted to see if the plastic hairstyles could be lost in game against the background graphics. Unfortunately they look like plastic in game just like at the character creation screen.
Knowing the layout of the isle better I was able to smoke through the quest lines and to my surprise they were different than the fighter quests. A definite plus. Aiding me in the travel is the pathfinding skill for scouts. It is only an increase of 16%, but it made me feel like I was flying through the isle. I didn't time it, but it didn't seem to take more than a minute to run from end to end of the island.
Scouts also get stealth which really doesn't slow you down that much. I felt like a stealthed bomb waiting to go off as most of my ambush attacks took out most lower level opponents and some equal level enemies in a single shot. Unfortunately this means that completing my scout HO was almost impossible.
I quit after discovering the main cave on the island because no one was around to group for the final encounter. Sad, but I understand that there isn't many newbies around to play with during the daytime hours.
Next up is the priest and mage if I feel like it. While not wow'd off my feet I was amused with the game. I doubt I could get over the seemingly "off" flow of combat and the skippy movement to play further. Yet, I would still highly recommend playing at least the Trial of the Isle as it is free!
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