Teh Phite Begineth Tanite!!!!

Okay, slight departure from our regularly scheduled programming here on Module Active. You see today, or rather tonight, the Battle for Helgahn begins for me! Today marks the release of Killzone 2. I've been following the game for, well, a really really long time - I've totally lost track of the time it's been since I first found out about the sequel to the first Killzone.

I pre-ordered KZ2 a few months ago and played the downloadable demo as soon as it became available. While the demo was shorter then I had hoped, it certainly did its job in making my mouth water for more "Bang Bang Boom Boom" on Helgahn. The ISA is invading Halgahn, taking the fight to their enemy, and as would be expected of any sovereign entity under siege, the Halgast are pissed about it.

The blood will begin to spill tonight, so I probably wont have much going in New Eden as I dive headlong into the single-player campaign of Killzone 2. I'll also spend sometime tonight, and over the weekend getting into the multiplayer as well. I've been looking forward to this for quite awhile, and I'll try and post my opinion of KZ2 after I spend some quality time with it over the weekend.

Rifta Powa! + Indecisiveness = Pleasure???

Yes, I love the Rifter. Vasavia trained Minmatar Frigates specifically so she could fly them. Wensley has a very nice "combat guide" on the Rifter, as well as some very good posts about his combat experiences in this versatile ship. If you're a fellow Rifter fan definitely check it out at http://wensley.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/the-rifter-guide-solo-pvp/. I wish I'd found it sooner.

Now, granted, I'm not much of a pvper at all right now. Matter of fact, of the three pvp experiences I have thus far, two of them end up with Vasavia going on a pod cruise back to a station to fit a new ship. The other one I managed to warp out. It was clear the thief I engaged was going to smear Vasavia gorgeous ass all over the asteroid belt we were fighting in. Only one of these experiences was in a Rifter, and it died at a gate camp. 5 on 1 are not goods odds in any ship (that I'm aware of) so don't go blaming our beloved Rifter for this failure.

As I've mentioned before (at least I believe I have in previous posts) I'd really like to get into pvp. I don't feel I have the support skills necessary to be successful at though. I'm working on them now. I've heard the statement many times that even a young player can be invaluable in group pvp as a tackler. I don't just want to tackle though, I want to bring more "umph" to the firing range, so to speak.

I have not really decided whether I want to commit Vasavia to a life of piracy, or whether her pvp experience will be through faction warfare. There's a couple reasons for this:

1. True Piracy leads to isolation - The cold hard fact of New Eden is individuals committed to a life of piracy will eventually be isolated to low-sec or null sec space. Their security status will get to the point it's too dangerous to enter empire. At least that's how I understand things - I am a newbie so there is a chance I'm over exaggerating this, but not on purpose I can assure you. I'm very intrigued by a life of Yarr, and even more so by the tales of solo Yarring I've read on various pirate blogs.
2. Faction Warfare & Role Playing - For role playing reasons, I'm not sure whether I'd like to see Vasavia get into faction warfare just yet. I've been toying with the idea of Vasavia alienating herself from the only faction she's ever known, ever loved, ever bled for. I've been toying with the idea of Vasavia, having been wronged, defecting to another Faction. Part of the reason is I have friends that play for other Factions (jerks!), and those factions also happen to have a low standing with the Caldari state. The other reason...I just like the idea. Cliche though it is.

So, I'm just not sure what I'm going to do with regard to PvP. Perhaps I should commit Piracy thru Faction Warfare! Almost two full months into an MMO and I still don't know what direction my character is going to go. It's so immensely refreshing to have this indecisiveness about a character! In every other MMO I've played, I always new where my character was heading - it was always defined by career/profession selections made at character creation.

In EVE though, despite the fact that Vasavia emerged as a Caldari Spec Ops trooper in the Military I can make her a successful miner running goods for the Minmatar and Gallante states if I decide to. The freedom that EVE offers, even though this is truly a very simple example, is so refreshing - this is what makes EVE so intriguing for me. You can be whatever you want in New Eden - even after character creation.

Indecisiveness FTW!

Sooo how 'bout those Rats...

As I'd hoped yesterday, I did manage to get some more time in the world of New Eden. I've been in the process of training Crusiers to level 3 in order to begin training Battleships. My understanding is Battleships are nice and all, but it seems like the majority of the EVE community could "take them or leave them" for fleet ops. So, I almost feel like I'm training to fly a ship that, in the long run, isn't as useful as the others. That being said, I can't help myself. I just love the Rokh.

See, she's just so damn pretty!

Now, I don't mean to draw the ire of the Battleship community in EVE. Don't get me wrong. I think they're awesome. I love them. It's just my impression that most of the community doesn't care (either for or against) for them. That being said, it seems like the only time the community likes to have them around is for large (and I mean large) fleet operations - think POS siege.

Nevertheless, I continued my progression to flying the Rokh. This morning, before heading off to work, I sat Vasavia down at a desk and I explained to her that she WAS going to learn Battleships 3 faster then 1D 15H and some odd seconds. She, of course, rolled her eyes at me. I knew she was right too. So, in about a day and a half I'll have the ability to fly my beloved Rokh. I don't quite have the isk to purchase the Rokh yet though.

I also ran a couple lvl 2 missions last night. The rats in these lvl 2 missions are much tougher than their lvl 1 counter-parts. More so then I had antcipated anyway. It ended up being a more lucrative night last night then the previous evening had been. After running those two missions, I earned around 350k from the mission payouts, and with all the loot and salvaged materials I ended up with an addition 2.8 million.

Not a bad night at all.

Screenies - Yahoo!

Just wanted to post a few screenies of Vasavia's travels thus far. I'm sorry to say I didn't record where I was when the shots were taken. I'll provide what detail I can though below the shots. Click on the shots for large version. For all of you lucky enough to have a fancy wide-screen monitor, I apologize. My monitor runs native 1280x1084.

Somewhere out in Deadspace during a mission. This was taken post combat. This monument is one of the most interesting environment details I've seen yet in a mission.


Just another shot from a different angle.


Recently acquired Drake. "Phoenix Claw" out for her maiden voyage. I am now broke.


Testing of the "Phoenix Claw's" warp drive were good.


Taken while the crew reset the nav computers for further warp testing.


The "Phoenix Claw's" maiden voyage and initial testing was positive. Navigation, electrical, and engineering systems checked out great. Weapon, and defensive systems are up next. This shot was taken as she came into docking range at her home station.

When I get some more shots I'll post those. So far, I'm loving the drake. Of course, I'm also still hanging out in Care Bear Land as I'm not interested in risking her in low-sec. I'll try to get some shots of her during combat.

One thing I've noticed, that's a little irritating, is that even when I get rid of the game's UI to take screens I've noticed in a couple shots system messages still show up. Like, "Pithi Blah Blah hits you for 14.5 hp" and so on. Not sure if those can be disabled for screen shots or not. Sure hope so or combat shots might not be so pretty.

Vasavia didn't get much done last night on account of having a soar throat, and a moody 7 month old to boot. She managed to get in one mission, which actually ended up being a fairly productive salvaging run as well. Not including the mission payout, she ended up netting just over 1.5 million in loot and salvaged goods.

Hopefully tonight proves to be just a fruitful, if not more so.

Module Active - Wall of Text crits you...

Let me start off by saying I am new at this wonderful world of blogging. I've always been one with a lot to say, but generally, I have a difficult time finding the words I'd like to use to transmit my thoughts.

I'm also new to the world of EVE, and actually EVE is what lead my to blogging. Many of the blogs listed in the "Blogs I'm Following" list are what inspired me to not only give EVE a try (for the second time), but also to start logging my experiences in New Eden.

I tried EVE Online once before, back in 2006...or was it 2007. Whatever. On my first venture into the brave new world that is New Eden I was intrigued, I was amazed, I was excited, I was more lost then I'd ever been in any MMO I'd ever tried. In hindsight, I know part of the problem was I'd rushed through the new player tutorial. I've never been one to sit through a tutorial the way game developers intend for new players. I'd always preferred to go boldly marching into the unknown. In times past, this worked for me. Sure, I stumbled along, but wasn't that part of the fun? To me it was. EVE, EVE she was an entirely different beast...

After rushing through the tutorial I found myself floating in space. I panned the camera around...What the hell am I supposed to do now? Wait how did Aura tell me to navigate??? Actually, no wait on that, how the hell did she tell me to find a mission agent to start with????
You get the point, I was totally lost on the game's basic, fundamental workings. To make a long story short (probably too late for that, sorry), I did fumble my way around New Eden in my shiny new newbie ship. I stuck with it for about a week. I then gave up all hope. I went back to WoW.

Fast forward to 2009, January to be exact. I'd been following MMO news and goings on for sometime through various websites. In particular, Massively was a regular stop in my daily Internet traveling. Massively has always had extensive EVE coverage, and starting in the fall of 2008 I found myself reading more and more of their articles on EVE. As is no news to anyone currently playing EVE, there's been a lot going on lately. Corp heists, bank heists, player tournaments, new expansion news, and the downfall of one of EVE's biggest alliances. None of these I'm going to go into detail about because, well, there's already great articles on the subjects around the player blogs and EVE news websites.

As I started reading more and more of these articles on EVE I became more and more interested in the game. Not because I wanted to try and accomplish the same feats as above, but just because I was intrigued by them. I read more about the world of New Eden, and found myself more interested in the game. I decided to give it a second try. I went to the EVE website, and signed up for a trial account, downloaded the client, and installed.

I created Vasavia, logged in, and told myself "This time you WILL take your time with the tutorial". And so I did. As I progressed I noticed things that I missed the first time around, were suddenly "clicking" in my skull. "Eureka"! I finished the tutorial, and ventured of into New Eden. I was intrigued, I was amazed, I was excited all over again. It was all falling into place this time! I ran some missions for the agent Aura sent me to. No problem. I found a new agent to work for. No problem. "Holy shit it's making sense!" I giggled like a school-girl as I poked along in space in my new shiny newbie ship.

Vasavia has been carving her path into the world of New Eden for almost 2 months (I think, I've been having so much fun I've actually lost track of how old she is). She's managed to get herself into situations she's had no business being in, and lost a frigate and a cruiser due to risky salvaging escapades. But that's just life in New Eden.

This blog, like so many other player blogs, will be used to log Vasavia's journey. It will be used for general ramblings, sometimes in character, sometimes out of character. I've never really been much into role play, but I think I'm going to give it a try with Vasavia. We'll see how that goes. I'll do my best to begin my posts in a way so that readers know whether I'm in-character, or out. Furthermore, be warned. I'm a complete newbie in New Eden. So, I'm sure I'm going to spout shit that just doesn't make sense about EVE, both in-character, and out of character. So, I'll just ask for your patience and understanding now.

With all the above being said, I hope you venture back to follow Vasavia as she develops. I hope you enjoy the adventure as much as I do.

Let us venture forth, into the brave new world of New Eden. Safe flying all.

*Module Active*