Yeah... I know.... but what can I do? I started playing L2 again!

I am definitly addicted. XD So when Deviant Realms shut down and I heard everyone was moving over to SupremeL2 I decided to check it out. Turns out they had a new 15x server that was going to start brand new! Now seemed to be the perfect time to start playing again, tottaly new server and all.
Look how many people there are in the starting area? XD That's like... half of Deviant Realm's starting population right there.And when I went to go get some newbie buffs I was just like, "omg!" That poor newbie buffer is getting raped! Some people where even screaming, "I'm stuck, move so I can get out!!"
Grabbing my newbie weapon I head off for some adventure.
If you have looked at my very first blogs (the really bad ones) you might remember these waterfalls.When I went into this dungeon to kill some stuff with my friend I saw this huge line of people all waiting for... something? I can't tell if its some quest monster or a raidboss they are waiting for.And after some time has passed, here you can see me killing a Stakato in the Cruma Tower region. :)

It's been fun so far playing on a new server. Will I stick with it? I'm not sure, I think I just might. I sure do switch MMOs way too much!

Interesting thing happend in EVE

Well, I didn't think I would get any content from EVE. I mean its just such a different game I wasn't sure if I was going to have anything to blog about. It's not like I can just go to some new area and take some pictures to show you guys. Well the other day I was just sitting in my asteroid belt doing some mining like I usually do when I saw some really interesting things go down.

I'm not really sure what happened but I'll do my best to explain what went on.

First I saw this rather large group of ships warp into the belt... some of them had low security ratings but not all of them. Then most of the ships warped off and left two of them in the belt.
I know the screens aren't very good but I did the best I could. I think I can get better ones in the future, I'm still learning the camera system and the action was so fast I had to be quick.

Well anyways, continuing the story. After the rest of the gang warped off, one of the pirates went over and floated by this rook(I think, not sure what ship it was) and then stole his can... but instead of flying off with the rooks minerals it just sat there.See the puff of smoke around the can? This is not the rook's can, I think this is the pirates. I'm not sure why he would jettison a.. replacement can?

Regardless... I DO know what he was doing... baiting the rook into attacking him! And attack him he did. A really cool battle happened.I know you can't really see them fighting, but I think that grey smoke is the rook getting hit by a missile and the rook was hitting the other ship with its drones. Obviously the pirate was an experienced player while the Rook was a n00b...If you look carefully in this picture you can see the smoking wreckage of the rook to the upper left of the... other ship. (I don't know what it's called XD)

But then when I thought it was all over something else very strange happened! Another ship warped into the belt, and began to attack the pirate! Is it the same pilot in a different ship? Or perhaps a corpmate?

The battle that ensued was very colorful and I'm sure it was exciting for both pilots involved.
Yay blinky lights! I have no idea what is happening here, if someone can explain what those little dots of light are?
Then like this glowy stuff started shooting out. Is this that stuff that drains your capacitor? I don't think its a damage thing I think its like a debuff. You can also see a missile exploding off the other ship.
Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the explosions of either ship. My cameras where positioned in a way where my view was orbiting the non-pirate ships. When they exploded the camera instantly zipped back to being centered around my ship, disorienting me and causing me to miss the big explosion. :( Next time I'll get some much better pictures.

Oh yeah, so uhm this ship that attacked the pirate died too. Too bad! But it was fun for me to watch and I bet fun for all those who fought.

The pirate then came over to me... and stole 100 ammo from my can. :P I had allready moved my ore out of the belt long ago... I wasn't about to attack the guy so he could not kill me or the NPC cops would vaporize him.

All said and done it was an exciting day and gives me hope that EVE will bring more blogging material then I thought.

Retriever

Allright, I got my Retriever! Check it out, this is a picture of it in my station. Note it has gears, and flames, and looks like it can mine a ton. And believe me it can definitly mine a ton! I never knew barges would mine so much more then my crappy ol' frigate. XDYou can see one of the strip miners on the top of the ship (the little ball looking thing). They look kind funny but oooh man is it sweet to mine in. On my frigate the vindictus I would get about 2k ore every 60 seconds, now I get 12k ore every 120 seconds!!! That is HUGE I knew mining barges where good but I didn't realize exactly how gimped I was. :PHere is a shot of it mining, notice that big stream of ore around the laser. Now the laser is fatter and has that puff of ore being sucked into the barge.

One interesting note is I thought I would be able to AFK easier with my mining barge, and this is true due to the 120 second cycle instead of 60 seconds. However after just two cycles of my mining lasers my barge's cargo space (which is a lot bigger then the frigate of course) is full. This means I still have to use a jetcan to mine just like when I was flying my frig.

Except now I have my second account to haul for me at the same time of my mining. :) I am "popping roids" sooo fast now. I haven't sold any of the ore I mined yet but I bet I will be making much more cash.

Deviant Realms is gone.... forever!

Yes it's true... Deviant Realms is no more. I wasn't around when it happened or I would have better screens, as it is this is all I could find.

It's a sad day when an MMO dies... I know Deviant Realms was just a server but it was MY server you know?

All the time spent... I had such grand plans. I know I have been playing EVE but I had always planned on playing Lineage 2 a bit here and there when I got bored of EVE. Now... I just don't know.

There is a new Lineage 2 server starting up. One with 15x rates as opposed to DR's 3x rates. I may play there with my friends... there is not much more I can say! Goodbye DR, rest in peace, we will not forget you!!!

(This is another reason why I am hesitant to play Supreme L2, this new server, what if it gets wiped too? I think I should just stick with EVE... because I know it will be around for a long time to come)

Say hello to ChewToastOnce! (again)

Haha yes that's right! I have become so addicted to EVE and have completely fallen in love with its style, its story (ie: the news because the story is the story of the players and thier alliances and economic stuff etc) and it's very unique and interesting game mechanics.

So who is this new character of mine? This 2nd account? (because its best to have two accounts if your gunna have more then one character, that way both can skill up at the same time, what a brilliant way for CCP to make tons of money from subscriptions) ChewToastOnce of course!

Which if you remember from my Lineage 2 character, ChewToastOnce is an anagram of CowNoseTheCat (my first EVE character).
Well there she is, Chewy herself. That's what her nickname is... Chewy and Kitty. :) I modeled her after the Lineage 2 version of ChewToastOnce. Which means she is average looking... but deadly behind that beautiful yet not extraordinary face.
Here is the ship you start out with if you race is Caldari, it's called the Ibis. It is a very crappy ship and I almost instantly upgraded... but it is worth a screenshot. :D
This is the ship I upgraded to, the merlin. I think it kind of looks like the fighters from StarCraft (the basic terran ship, the one that can cloak). It can uhm shoot... and stuff... I don't really know how to use it yet. ;)
And here is a picture of one of my corp mates Raven I think it is called? I might be mistaken on the name but damn that this is big and can really pack a punch! He mostly used missiles which I think it the Ravens specialty. I followed him around as he did some missions so that I could gain a bit of standing with the Gallente (I started with Caldari faction but I wanted to do Gallente missions because I want to fly Gallente ships). Man missions are boring! Honestly I don't see why people prefer them to mining so much...

Mining Pro's: Can make money faster in the 'endgame", can be semi-AFK and still mine,
Missioning Pro's: Can get money faster in the begining, can get nice faction gear/loot for PvP, the skills you train for running missions are as useful for PvP as they are mission running while mining skills are (obviously) useless in PvP.

Both are boring, both kind of make the same amount of cash, but I think mining makes more money in the end.

I prefer mining over running missions because that is something that I have always enjoyed in MMOs. If I look back on it.... *flashback* In EverQuest 2 I was a huuuge harvester, in Ultima Online I was a miner/lumberjacker/fisherperson, in Lineage 2 I was the Spoiler type dwarf which is the one that hunts for rare parts and materials instead of crafting them, , and I did a good deal of harvesting in Vanguard.

It's because I enjoy to grind, but while at the same time I grind I also listen to talk radio, watch a movie, or listen to a podcast. So the type of grinding that takes the least amount of concentration and focus is usually what I do. That way I can focus and concentrate on whatever I am watching or listening to. I hate missing important bits of the story. I know it seems kind of silly, you might think that if an MMO is so boring you have to watch a movie while playing it then it is not worth playing but this isn't true. See what makes a game like EVE or Lineage 2 worth grinding for is the PvP. All of your many hours of grinding can come down to a few minutes of heart-pounding PvP action. You might in one death loose days of hard work and clicking on boring things. This is what makes the PvP in games like EVE or Lineage 2 so much more rewarding and fun.

This is also the reason why WoW pvp (and EQ2 and other western MMOs) is really lame. Sure it might be fun here and there for a diversion but it really doesn't have any substance to it other then being a sort of min-game or something tacked on to the main game.

And on a final note, this is why a game like EverQuest 2 or World of Warcraft can be fun to play casually because you don't have to grind and grind for the best gear in order to get the most out of the game. You can have decent/crappy gear and still go and do all the quests go and hit up a dungeon with you friends and you will have a good time. It doesn't HAVE to be boring and grindy, it can be if you want (I know I harvested my butt off in EQ2 for no real reason) but the main focus and gameplay is more about the quests and social things.

Of course I have never raided in any MMO because I'm always starting over with new MMOs and new characters so I never get to the "endgame" and I hear it is a totally different story then... (like I have heard horror stories of needing to grind for hours just to get enough gold for armor repairs and consumables just for one raid, and I have heard these stories from more then one western MMO)

Mining a bit and skillin up!

Well EVE is kind of a slower paced game... it's not like a traditional MMO where I can just go and explore some new area and get some screenshots from that to show you guys. So I wasn't really sure if I had enough content to make a blog, but thinking about it, yeah I do! :P

First off I would like to show you this shot of my drone killing this rat (slang for the NPC pirates).
You can see me mining to the left of the drone. Man those explosions sure are satisfying. I can't wait till I blow up some people! :) I'm not really interested in going on missions to kill NPCs but oh man I would love to kill some other players. >:) I'm sure I'll get my chance someday!

OK I got podded. ><
:P This is a picture of me!


Here I am flying in to buy 9 million ISK worth of skill books! These two books where 4.5m ISK each, and are some advanced learning books. I like how this Gallente shuttle looks... really sleek and stylish!

Skill Training Completed

My gosh! What a change of pace from my past blogs! Yes... this blog is going to be an opinionated one instead of my usual "diary style" but its just such an important issue that I really feel like I must address it in a whole blog to itself.

The issue is, ALL THOSE PEOPLE THAT KEEP TELLING ME I WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN EVE!!!!

Please don't take this the wrong way people who commented, I'm not singling you out! Not only have I gotten 3 comments telling me this but people have even IMed me telling me this. And it's not like they say it in a really negative way (even though it is a very negative thing to say) they honestly believe what they are saying and they are like trying to "warn" me.

The reasons that they say I will never amount to anything in EVE is this: They think that because the people who started on EVE day 1 have been training this whole time that anyone who has started later then day 1 will be gimped.

This does sound logical, because there is no way to catch up. However this is crap for a few different reasons.

Compare EVE to other MMOs, in those games is not the people who have been playing since day 1 generally going to be stronger then even a new person who quickly grinded to the top? Depending on which game their gear might not be as good as the newbie but likely they will have accumulated other treasures to show how far they have come.

In EVE it has become very obvious to me that REAL LIFE skills will always beat out in-game skills (and things like how strong your ship is). I noticed this in Lineage 2 a lot, the guilds who where the best organized did MUCH better in PvP even if they didn't have as good equipment! There are just many many factors OTHER then in-game skills in EVE that make the difference between success and failure.

But "You will still never be as good as them!" these people might still say to me. Again, not true! While it might take an impossibly long amount of time to train every skill in the game, you don't NEED every skill in the game!

For example, I am barely a month into the game and I am all ready about 6 weeks from getting my Mining Barge. This barge is what I will be using to mine in deep space! I don't need to have a HULK (about a year of training from now) to be a successful miner. I would much rather fly around and mine in deep space with a 6 million isk barge then I would a 200 million HULK.

Anyways I know this was ranty but I'm gunna go ahead and post it. ^^;;
Here is a picture of my fat ass hauler in the docking bay. :)

One word.... EVE!

Yes that's right, I have switched MMO's yet again! This one is big.... this one is REALLY BIG. Of all the MMOs I have played EvE will take this blog in a completely different and new direction. Well, what I meen by "completely new and different direction" I am talking about the essence of EVE. It's just such a different kind of MMO compared to Lineage 2, EverQuest 2, or Vanguard.

See in a traditional fantasy MMO you have these rails to go on. You might adventure here or there or go quest at this spot or that spot but you are limited to a steady regular progression of your character that is the same as everyone else. A better way to describe this is, "In [insert generic fantasy MMO here] your character gets strong as you level up, but the monsters get stronger aswell, so really the only thing that changes around you is the enviroment. And you just go through the same enviroment and quests that everyone else does."

In EVE its completely different. There are no quests. No places to go and farm, no castles to explore no dungeons to raid. Rather the game is the players. Every journey and every characters experience in EVE is completely unique because there are no "rails" to go on in order to get to the top or to get to some max level to do good in PvP. In EVE everything just IS. It's hard to explain.... I hope you get the point I am trying to make. ;)

Ok the first screenshot I would like to show you is this nice little picture of my mining ship the Navitas.
Beautiful isn't it? Here you can see me mining an asteroid. Behind me floats a jetcan which I place my ore into. Later I will come back with my hauler to haul the ore back to a nearby station.
I quickly made some friends in EVE. ^^ Here I am in the middle of a big mining operation!Here is a picture of a minmatar shuttle. Shuttles are a fast and cheap way to get around the universe.
The universe in EVE is huge! As many as 35,000 people can play at one single time on the same server. That is one of the craziest and best things about EVE the fact that there is just one server. This is so exciting! I can't wait to see what will happen in my stay here in EVE. ^^

Ding level 70!!

Ah, well, I like to save up some more pics or get some more important news or stories from my various travels but just has not been much happening this month. (Dog days of summer and all that)

Most of the time I have been searching for recipes in the Beast Farm. Oh, well that is kind of a special note, I hit level 70!! And you know, I was just looking at when I made CowNoseTheCat, it was exactly 1 year and 1 ago as of this posting. Ahh not bad for a years work in my opinion. And any Lineage 2 player knows that getting your 1st character equips and stuff is most difficult.

You know what that means tho? Only 5 more levels to subclass!! So I said "forget it" and I'm dropping ChewToastOnce. I will only PK with that character. Instead, I wanna subclass! Dwarf dagger will be so cute. ;)

OK for todays screens I went on a few raids with my alliance. There has been some amount of drama about raids and who is doing them on the Deviant Realms server. (I wont get into too much detail, but basically the server-wide raids are canceled indefinitely) I wasn't sure if I should post these pictures or not since its kind of a secret that we are raiding but someone else spilled the beans so I'm gunna go ahead.

ChewToastOnce is back in action

First off I would like to present, the Shadow Company!!

The Shadow Company is my clan in Lineage 2. They are a nice group of people and they make the game so much better. I'm sure you will be seeing a lot of them in the future! But wait, hold on a second? Where is Cow Nose in that picture? Don't worry, I'm there I am playing my old PK character ChewToastOnce! You can see me sporting my Theca. I got past level 40 so I moved on from my +4 Manticore and +9 Maingauche, now I can use my +7 Crystal Dagger and my +4 Theca.

I had to take this picture really quickly, but here you can see someone flying a dragon! There is my friend plushie running away in the distance and oh wait a second is that Doom I am wearing? Yes thats right I crafted full Doom light set. ^^

Yeah that means I am past level 52 (or whatever it is you can use B grade) I am now level 54! You know, I have never seen this monster before? I guess its from all the way back in C1 however my friends told me its graphics have been updated. I think they look really cool, I just had to take a screenshot. :3
And last but not least (things are moving so fast!!) I CRAFTED A BLOODY ORCHID! Bloody Orchid for those of you who don't know is a low A grade dagger and has a 60% craft rate. ;) Dang thing looks HUGE in my hands!