Go check out all the latest episodes…read the articles and watch some cool Vanguard videos.

I am also starting to talk about some new games from the Station Access…make sure to look for me in all of them!

http://www.voyagesofvanguard.com

Beau

So on the official Vanguard forums there was a thread about Curse closing it’s support for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. I’ll be honest, (as I said on the thread) I have used these in the past, for other games, but in the last months since making the “Immersion Project” rules I try to steer as far away from them as possible. Let’s take a typical example. I put “vanguard quests” into Google’s search.

The first entry was the Curse gaming site, complete with a database of quests, gear and loot. On the site you can enter any number of variables to find information such as location, drops, mob strength, and “secrets” (like which direction to go in a dungeon.)
Funny thing is, I’m sure that most readers of this are VERY familiar with “cheat sites.” Yes, they are cheat sites. If you go to a website and look up a secret code to enter into a Wii game to unlock that pesky lock on level 34, then that is a cheat. Looking up strategies and drops for a certain mob for an MMO is a cheat. The question is if you are comfortable with using such sites.

I have used them in the past, for games like World of Warcraft or City of Heroes. That was before I made the Rules of Immersion, which, despite their fancy larper sounding title, actually are just a simple set of guidelines to make me play in a more organic way. They are rules that govern chat and the usage of mods to increase information, for example.
Now, thanks to the rules, I use actual in game landmarks for my sense of direction. I am becoming more and more used to the look of certain areas, like a new city, until I memorize the direction I’m going simply by looking at the layout of the landscape. Just like in real life. I am even slowly toying with the idea of using a physical map (I will temporarily use the cloth one I got with the Vanguard limited edition) that I will mark with locations myself. Is that the same as going to a website with an interactive map that shows you exact levels and locations of spawn points? Not at all.
On the Voyages of Vanguard episode 38 me and Luper were having a discussion about the Immersion Guidelines. I told her it was a great way to force myself to slow down, so I won’t run through content so fast. I have been playing since December, and only have a level 28. To give you an idea of her speed, she has 15 level 50′s (the max level.) She told me that she thought the developer should be responsible for making sure we don’t run out of content to do. While I agree somewhat, that the dev SHOULD be trying to add new and interesting things to ANY MMO, no one can show me a game with endless content. Even EQ1, which has been around for almost 10 years, with (I think) over 13 expansions and more planned, has enough content to conquer the hardest of the “hardcore.” It is impossible, thanks a good deal to sites like Curse, to make a game that has so much content that players will never run out of things to do. No developer has that ability yet.

I also have a theory that players don’t WANT endless possibilities. In real life, you basically have endless possibilities. Yet, how many of us stick to the same routine, day in and out? The only members of society that seem to practice this “who knows what today will bring” attitude are the homeless. We need a set of rules and boundaries (in real life and in game) to make our accomplishments WORTH something. Look at any case where certain “hard to get” items or level suddenly becomes easier for everyone to get. One of the largest complaints of the NGE was that Jedi’s, once a very time-consuming level of play to obtain, were available for all to play from the get-go. You can log in and make a Jedi right now. Other players felt that this de-valued their achievement. Why? Because the rule of “it’s hard to become a Jedi” became “it’s open to everyone.” The boundary between Jedi and “regular” player was taken away. (We will not get into this right now, being that I cannot understand how someone else’s fun in an MMO can be so messed up by some other player’s fun.)
Look at Second Life. Everyone has tried it, and it can be fun, but no one sticks around that long. Yes, they keep their free account, but even Linden Labs has came out and said the average play time for players is very very SHORT. Players do not want a “anything goes” game. They want to be able to say to other players “look what I achieved inside these boundaries.” Otherwise, things have no value. Same in real life. If everyone had a Bentley, no one would care.
The ironic thing is that some of these players that want the most elite titles and gear use these “cheat” sites everyday. I still use them in games I don’t play as much. Many of my friends and loved ones use sites like Curse to look up loot and maps.
The question here is, are you ok with playing like that? If so, go for it.
I’ll be the dork that is asking “Could you write me an in game letter instead of sending me a tell? I just am not comfortable with mind-to-mind links quite yet.”

Beau

1) QQ : This is supposed to be a lil crying symbol right? Like two crying eyes? You put this when someone is whining? It’s only one letter away from the word CRY so why not just put CRY?

2) QFT, QFE: Quoted for Truth? Quoted for Emphasis? This makes sense, wouldn’t wanna’ type out all those icky words! Why not just put “I agree a whole bunch?”

3) ZOMG: Ok, so I know OMG means Oh My God. ZOMG was started because, like most “leet” words, someone at some point mis-typed and that came out. So it stuck. And so now everyone does it. EVERYONE. ’Cept me.

4) LOL: An oldie, but c’mon people still use it. It’s “laughing out loud”. Not “laughing on line”, which is stupid. It was made to tell the other person that you are laughing at them. My wife just puts “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”.

5) Pew Pew: Ok, so I first came across this in Eve. Something to do with lasers. Just something cute to say or is there more to it?

6) PWNED: This rhymes with OWNED, as in OWN as in “I own that machete.” I have heard a few people say “pawned” and I think they are the real hardcore nerd’s cuz that’s like, a chess thang. This whole thing stemmed from sports right? For example: “You got owned on third base.” That’s what I heard.

7) CAREBEAR: This is one of my favorites. It’s like /spit in WoW. Some people say it and they go “yeh man, I just PWNED that NOOB with my words! YEH!” Trust me, I have heard people say this. So, a “carebear” is someone that doesn’t like PvP. In other words, they would rather not spend their time getting shot by someone (with LEET skillZ)over and over. They would rather, you know, actually have fun. Dumbasses.

8) NOOB: This comes from NEWBIE which, I thought, came from the military, like the term “Green” as in inexperienced. I worked in the theater (I painted all the backdrops and scenery) and the term “green” was thrown around A LOT. Like today’s NOOB. Ok, so it’s “NOOB” as in “NEWB” not “NUB”, which sounds like “NUT” but with a B as in BOY, which rhymes with TOY. Right? I have heard a few people say “NUB”, I mean actually correct me when I say “NOOB.” I think, if there were a nerd civil war, there would be two sides: “NOOB” and “NUB”. I would be the one drinking a beer and watching.

9) Replacing letters with numbers and capitals: i.e: “skillZ” , “phat LEWTZ” , “n00b”. I am not totally sure where this came from, I think it started with mid-late 80’s hip hop. Which is so funny, because today’s nerdy pasty youth are about as far from “gangsta” as I am. Which is really far.

All in all, I find it kinda’ beautiful. It’s like art, some of it, twisting words to the point that their meaning becomes something else. It’s like so many traditions we have: no one knows why they’re there.
So help me out. I want to be able to “pwn nubs with my pew-pew’s” sometime soon, before I realize I absolutely HATE that kind of chatter.

Beau

PS: I hate bands like Korn even more, but hey, one thing at a time.

(CNN) — Author Arthur C. Clarke, whose science fiction and non-fiction works ranged from the script for “2001: A Space Odyssey” to an early proposal for communications satellites, has died at age 90, associates have said.
art.clarke.obit.gi.jpg

Visionary author Arthur C. Clarke had fans around the world.

Clarke had been wheelchair-bound for several years with complications stemming from a youthful bout with polio and had suffered from back trouble recently, said Scott Chase, the secretary of the nonprofit Arthur C. Clarke Foundation.

He died early Wednesday — Tuesday afternoon ET — at a hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since the 1950s, Chase said.

“He had been taken to hospital in what we had hoped was one of the slings and arrows of being 90, but in this case it was his final visit,” he said.

In a videotaped 90th birthday message to fans, Clarke said he still hoped to see some sign of intelligent life beyond Earth, more work on alternatives to fossil fuels — and “closer to home,” an end to the 25-year civil war in Sri Lanka between the government and ethnic Tamil separatists.

“I dearly wish to see lasting peace established in Sri Lanka as soon as possible,” he said. “But I’m aware that peace cannot just be wished — it requires a great deal of hard work, courage and persistence.”

Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick shared an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay for “2001.” The film grew out of Clarke’s 1951 short story, “The Sentinel,” about an alien transmitter left on the moon that ceases broadcasting when humans arrive.

As a Royal Air Force officer during World War II, Clarke took part in the early development of radar. In a paper written for the radio journal “Wireless World” in 1945, he suggested that artificial satellites hovering in a fixed spot above Earth could be used to relay telecommunications signals across the globe.

He is widely credited with introducing the idea of the communications satellite, the first of which were launched in the early 1960s. But he never patented the idea, prompting a 1965 essay that he subtitled, “How I Lost a Billion Dollars in My Spare Time.”

His best-known works, such as “2001″ or the 1953 novel “Childhood’s End,” combined the hard science he learned studying physics and mathematics with insights into how future discoveries would change humanity.

David Eicher, editor of Astronomy magazine, told CNN that Clarke’s writings were influential in shaping public interest in space exploration during the 1950s and ’60s. Video Watch how Clarke stands among sci-fi giants »

“He was very interested in technology and also in humanity’s history and what lay out in the cosmos,” Eicher said. His works combined those “big-picture” themes with “compelling stories that were more interesting and more complex than other science fiction writers were doing,” he said.

Tedson Meyers, the chairman of the Clarke Foundation, said the organization is now dedicated to reproducing the combination of imagination and knowledge that he credited the author with inspiring.

“The question for us is, how does human imagination bring about such talent on both sides of the brain?” he asked. “How do you find the next Arthur Clarke?”

Clarke was knighted in 1998. He wrote dozens of novels and collections of short stories and more than 30 nonfiction works during his career, and served as a television commentator during several of the Apollo moon missions.

Though humans have not returned to the moon since 1972, Clarke said he was confident that a “Golden Age” of space travel was just beginning. Video Watch Clarke talk about sci-fi vs. reality »
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“After half a century of government-sponsored efforts, we are now witnessing the emergence of commercial space flight,” he said in his December birthday message.

“Over the next 50 years, thousands of people will travel to Earth orbit — and then, to the moon and beyond. Space travel and space tourism will one day become almost as commonplace as flying to exotic destinations on our own planet.”

We join an alliance, the british guy that runs it loves to say stuff like “go go go!” It’s fun, as in army men fun.
But something is missing. The Raven was a gift, or I should say the money for the Raven was a gift. 150 million ISK. A friend of mine from the game owed me some favors and bought me a chunk of ISK, 150 million of it, for about 15 US dollars. I had, in the past tons of ISK. I had blown it over the years, and when I re-subbed recently I was prepared for that long mission grind back to the millions.
Thing is: the grind is a blast! I love going into level 4’s with my corp, drunkily (is that a word?) chatting away on Vent with them, while making cash. It’s easy to earn a few million in a night. I knew that even at that rate, however, it would take me a good while to get all the money I needed. But I was having fun at it.
Then comes the gift. Problem solved. I am a weak man, I cannot resist free millions of ISK. Now I have my battleship, and some other good ships as well.
I’m sure that the climate has changed in Eve, that (as mentioned before by another blogger here) BS’s are nothing like what they used to be. But it just feels a little empty now, that when I see some player with an entire fleet I just see a player with a credit card. You can buy the pilot, you can buy the mods, you can buy the ships.
And now we have been commanded to “stay in station” buy our Alliance leader. I haven’t logged in my main for a few days, because of the paranoia. War isn’t proving to be hell, war is proving to be smack talk and boredom.
I want my nightly drinking sessions on Vent back, and while I support RMT, it feels so odd in Eve.
Oh well, I have alts that are still proving to be a blast!

My Gold for Newbs program is back in full swing! I have been handing out a single gold to new players in Vanguard, but recently had to quit because of financial reasons. (In other words, it was cutting into my boat fund.) But then a great player (that actually was quitting the game, and took literally the phrase “can I have your stuff”) donated a plat to me and the cause. That’s 100 newbies that will get a hand out! Yes, a hand OUT not a hand UP. It’s free gold. Virtual welfare. Who cares…it’s fun, and they only get the gold after they “hang out” with me and take a tour, things like that. Honestly by the time they are done with my little tour they could’ve made the gold themselves. Ha! Tricked!

The Epic Dolls guild will be holding their first annual Prom soon! Check it:

I LOVE events like this. I will be there with my date.

Beau

So I logged in some more today realizing that the Corp (guild) I met last night forgot to actually invite me to the guild. We spent most of the night catching me up on some of the changes that came over the last year I had missed, all the small things like this new little threat meter and new ships. They were a very cool group, save for some of that typical Eve chat (you know, someone starts talking about body parts, tries to sound really shocking, no one laughs.) The Corp leader has some cool ideas, from a huge group of us taking frigates to do missions to some other top secret stuff. It seems I met a great group of people. And *gasp* a girl too!

But some thoughts occurred to me as I played and during my nightly bath-to-wash-off-the-blood-of-the-pirates.

1) I believe that the intensity some players have for the game can be explained easily: they are in childhood mode. This is by no means a slap at the players or an attempt at calling them children, but it is a compliment to what CCP has done. They have made a game that brings out that “army men battle” type feeling in you. If you remember playing “army” or “battle” as a kid, you will most likely have a few memories of screaming, shooting invisible enemies with guns made of duct-tape and pvc pipe, and at some point, death. Very serious stuff, if you ask me. EVE does this to people. Picture it: you are in a pitched battle, and suddenly someone yells over the voice chat “so and so, get your ass down here! MOVE MOVE MOVE!” This is the stuff out of childhood, to me, pure bliss! In fact, when the “asshole” corp leader yelled at me, he didn’t just yell at me, he gave me a short tongue lashing about how if “I didn’t know how to do my job, I didn’t belong in war.” And I explained that lag had nothing to do with war, and after some more yelling, I gave him an audio finger and quit the corp.
I actually didn’t mind the episode at all: I knew what he was saying, and I hadn’t been that excited in a while.

2) The feelings of childhood bliss are so strong that even in a game that has such a dynamic and realistic economy, no one (in my opinion) would want to try anything close to using real money. You know, RMT or anything like that. I have nothing against RMT, but in a game like EVE especially you can see how it would not only destroy the “immersion” part of the game, but would literally take away the feelings of achievement by hundreds or thousands of players. Normally, in defense of RMT, I would say “cry me a river”. In fact, in most cases I have said that the case of one player gaining unfair advantages was not a valid one, because MMO’s were never a competition. What should someone care if your orc friend paid 50 cents for that sword you spent 50 hours for? I still believe no one should.
But in EVE, something like the “real world” getting mixed into it would destroy the FEELING of a real world, something that I find totally fascinating.
In other words, EVE is playtime for adults, and it celebrates our imaginations.

I don’t worry too much about the details. I’ll admit that my lack of caring about how “good” I am has resulted in an account as old as mine having such a low-skilled character. But, I don’t care. Like I’ve said before, no one can convince that I’m not having fun.

I am going to dive more into classes in EVE, of which there are technically none. But, as you play the game you will notice that everyone has their role, or class, like any other game. If you don’t think so, try being in the middle of a battle and saying on Vent: “I think I’ll try something new, I don’t wanna’ tackle.” You will quickly be told to do what you are supposed to do, and nothing else. This example is a little off, being that no one in the middle of a battle should try and switch jobs, but you get my point.
Of course, the difference with EVE is that you CAN specialize. You can find your favorite craft, and get better and better at it. Or, you can be an “everyman”. Skills don’t make you always BETTER at one thing, but able to do MANY things. And then, at some point, you might be good at everything.
I’ll stop here. I need to check my other games, then go switch on another skill learning!
Beau

In GAX chat the other day, we were watching the Eve coverage of some PvP tournaments. Jade shared a link, I clicked on it, and there was a streaming program showing two teams of ships battling it out. It steamed perfectly, and the “camera crew” was even able to zoom in, and two voices gave a play-by-play.
I was so inspired by the “techy-ness” of it all. Why don’t more MMO’s do this? Live coverage of ANY event, or even of day-to-day happenings would be amazing. (On FFXI’s home page they do feature a “web-cam” type thing, showing players going about their business.) For me, it solidified CCP as one of the best (and most innovative) lil MMO companies around.

So, I HAD to re-sub and see what my main character had been up to. I had even un-installed Eve to make room for some of my other MMO’s, but within an hour had the new game client downloaded and going. Granted, Eve is much smaller than most MMO’s, but no issues is still no issues.

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I’ll be honest, I missed my lil character. According to my account, I came to life in November of ’04. That would make my account roughly 3 and a half years old. My main is a female, mainly because I was showing off the character creation to my wife, and she later thought Eve was not very interesting. I have a good amount of skill points, but obviously I could have had many many more if I had not let my account lapse here and there.
So as I logged in I’ll admit that I felt a little lost. I knew it would take time to get used to the game again. First off, the new patch is amazingly purdy. I have the old engine running on my very old machine, and the difference in detail is insane. Still, it is space, and ships. But now, the ships FEEL as huge as they should.
But quickly I realized I had no cash, save a few million. In my “glory days” I had a Raven, and that ship saw only a few battles before I tried my way into ghetto space….UNINSURED. I think I spent round 120 mil on the ship, and got only a small fraction of that for default insurance. Luckily I still had some millions, but I have spent it all over the last year or so on junk ships and silly things. And skills too!

I will go further into details later, but needless to say my first few days back into Eve made me remember why I loved it AND hated it. Missions are such a dead end sometimes, even if you are going at it and gaining some good rep and a lot of cash, you can suddenly thrown into (without any warning) an impossible mission. I took one from an agent today, and normally he had handed me good missions that were challenging, but I always had fun and survived.
Suddenly I fly to his next waypoint, and lo and behold I am in the middle of 40 or so ships, and I die within seconds. I tried several more times to make bookmarks outside of the ships targeting, but as soon as one was targeted the entire group came after me. This makes real world sense, but couldn’t my agent told me this was going to be a mission only suitable for 3 or 4 of me? I dumped the mission, lost some rep and logged out, questioning why the missions are still so unpredictable. I don’t want easy mode, but a heads up would be nice. Of course, being that it was only my first or second day back, I could’ve easily have missed a warning sign.

All in all I have been enjoying my experiences. I wish I could post a simple readable chart of my characters skills for all to laugh at or to point out weaknesses in, but even for it’s technological wonders CCP seems as though they still can’t allow you to share such information. I found plenty of XML workarounds, but came down to a simpler, yet more tiring and primitive method: posting a screenshot. Even with a screenie, I would have to splice 5 or 12 of them to show all the skills.
If I am missing how, let me know.
SO, I wanted to write a ton more, but Eve is not complicated, as fas as real life isn’t complicated, but it can be if you allow it. It is not hard at all, unless you want to make it hard. This is good. Eve allows you to do what you want, within their universe and inside it’s restrictions.
Now, I think I need help. I am going to look for a corp. I have been a member of several, but found that almost every time I join one the majority of it’s members don’t take kindly to questions from a noob. An almost 10 million skill point noob. I was yelled at on teamspeak one time, in military fashion, for not knowing quite what to do in a battle. I told the leader to kiss my butt. The rest of the chat got quiet, no one had ever told the leader to shove it. I quit that corp and flew home in a pod.

This is all filmed with the graphics turned down to about medium..and you can see it sill looks really good. I have found that the lower levels of Vanguard are the higher levels of other games.

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