…although not as much as I would like due to some big changes in my RL living arrangements.
But this blog is not for talking about such mundane concerns, I’m here to talk about internet spaceships.
A couple of EVE Dev blogs appeared this week, the first being a breakdown of PvP ship losses which was quite interesting. The Research and Statistics department at CCP has been studying the ship loss figures and producing graphs (they love graphs apparently). Worth a read if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
One thing that stood out for me at least is that ship losses dues to PvP, whilst predictably following subscruber trends quite closely, are actually fairly close numerically to the actual subscriber numbers. Meaning that on avarage every player loses slightly less than one ship a month. Given the prevalence of non-combat pilots (carebears) in EVE at the moment this demonstrates (possibly, I’m no statistician) that PvP pilots are more active (or less careful) in the game than the bears.
Another Dev Blog was regarding some new level 4 agents which have been added to the game, ostensibly to alleviate congestion at mission hubs. Noticeably none of the new agents are in lo-sec, adding to the speculation that CCP is more interested in catering to the needs of PvE pilots than the residents of low and null-sec. I’m hoping the winter expansion will be giving some love to us dwellers in the less secure regions of EVE.
The CSM election results have been announced, with turnout up on last time around but still less than the first election. The delegates are as follows, accompanied by links to Hallan Turrek’s interviews with the candidates and their websites if available:
- Diedra Vaal (2967 votes, Chairperson), interview.
- Vuk Lau (2020 votes), interview.
- Mazzilliu (1983 votes), interview.
- Zastrow J (1853 votes).
- Erik Finnegan (1825 votes), interview.
- Avalloc (1581 votes).
- Omber Zombie (1319 votes), interview.
- Larkonis Trassler (1255 votes), interview.
- Meissa Anunthiel (1132 votes)
- Issler Dainze (932 votes, alternate)
- Serenity Steele (927 votes, alternate)
- Shatana Fulfairas (832 votes, alternate), interview.
- Chip Mintago (766 votes, alternate), interview.
- Weazy Z (569 votes, alternate), interview.
Well done to all the candidates, and to the players who voted. Remember the CSM is your voice at CCP and is unique in the MMO sphere, use it or lose it people. It would be quite interesting to see a breakdown of voters according to their play style, I’d like to know the proportion of voters who are hardcore PvP’ers compared to those who are nul-sec soldiers or carebears. (Hmm, there’s an idea, watch this space)
The EVE blogosphere has exploded recently with CrazyKinux struggling to keep up with all the new additions. According to his calculations there are now over 400 EVE player blogs on the go, with more being added all the time. The GameScribe EVE bloggers Community has been helped by the contest that they’re running (currently at 50 blogs and counting) and a dedicated hosted blog solution for EVE bloggers has also started up over at PodLogs (98 blogs). This is great news, as I am a firm believer in EVE’s metagame (the game played outside the actual universe) and the more people involved in it, the more interesting it gets. Blogging is also a good way to get your voice heard above the clamour of the forums where a post can be lost to the nether pages in short order. However it also means that I have a huge number of blogs to trawl through in my quest to find a blog of the week :/
Speaking of the blogosphere, this months Blog Banter generated a wide range of responses to Ga’len’s suggested topic, ranging from the minor tweak which would make all the difference, to whole new ways to play the game, and from there to the outright bizzarre. Props to Hallan for his bear cavalry post, put a smile on my face at least. Look out for more banterage next month.
Things have been pretty busy around here so my project to port my guides (the few that there are) to PDF form is currently on hold whilst I sort out my time management. There are other things which take priority at the moment.
Blog of the Week
I’ve had my work cut out for me this week choosing a blog to add to my blogroll, as such I’ve decided on a bit of a cop-out. Trawling through hundreds of blogs with limited time is a bitch of a job and I haven’t yet organised a decent system for doing so (or even found all the blogs :/), so this weeks addition(s) to the sidebar are GameScribe and PodLogs.
These are both hosted solutions for EVE bloggers which use the Wordpress MU platform and are a great way to get started in blogging. GameScribe is a more general gaming blog which is aimed at gamers in general and PodLogs is focussed on EVE in particular. Both have a wide selection of themes available for EVE blogs and some of PodLog’s themes are downloadable for use on your own wordpress blog if like me you host it yourself. Both are proving extremely popular (as the evident from the explosion of EVE bloggers.) If you want to take part in the EVE blogging scene you should have a look at both of these services, and get your blog on 
Till next time, good hunting and don’t let the reds get you down ( I really need to fix my OV settings)
