Anyways, EVE Online has filled the void that AoW left behind. I'm a bit torn about the game, actually. I love it and the setting a lot, but leaving AoW has caused me to leave behind the guild I built, as no one seems to be interested in coming with me to EVE, either because they do not think they will like it, are to embroiled in AoW, or just don't want to pay the monthly fee. I haven't had an issue with the fee, as I've always been a pay-to-play player and dropping the monthly fee for one or two accounts isn't much of an issue for me, and it even instills a sense of fairness in me for some odd reason, even though it's quite possible to essentially "buy" ISK in EVE via the PLEX system.
So far I've been focusing mainly on industry. I had previously attempted EVE sometime last year, so I came back to the game with a character that had somewhere around 800,000 SP for industry, as well as a Retriever a friend had donated to me. This time around I had no other games to distract me, so I was able to dive into it right away and I've spent the last two weeks doing non-stop reading about EVE (even while playing thanks to the in-game browser). This game has an insane learning curve - there's been several books with 400+ pages of info published, and countless wikis, guides, and more. It's a lot to take in, but the overwhelming amount of data is a bit nice compared to the shallowness of most MMORPGs these days.
My friend, Nihilanth, has been helping me out quite a bit. He's even given me access to his 34M SP industry character which has helped a great deal. Coming back to the game with the possibility of giving myself Orca support, or flying both a Retriever and a Mackinaw has given me a large increase in possible profits from mining. As a side project and a way to have a bit of fun, we've decided to give ship production a go with a plan to feed off the Factional Warfare market. Today was an exceptionally good day for mining, as I woke up earlier than usual and found that the belts in my home system were completely replinished and I ended up mining somewhere around 35M Isk worth of minerals with the Retriever + Mackinaw, primarily going after Pyroxeres and Scordite as a secondary.
The only issue I've run into is that I have no way to transfer large amounts of ore and minerals to systems that they would sell well in. Currently working on fixing that (a Badger just doesn't cut it, but I'm working on an upgrade), but for now I've had to rely on the kindness of others and courier contracts to move my cargo to the correct systems. Part of the issue is that I'm practically drowning Tritanium half the time, and I need to sell it to keep up with the money required to purchase resources that I just can't easily get in or near my home system. Although, that cost only comes out to around 13M isk for every couple of ships produced.
I've been enjoying the industry side of things quite a lot, but I felt a need for PVP and decided to set up a second account using the "Sidekick" program that allows you to make a new account for only $24 (which includes the first three months of subscription, it's a great deal and I'm even thinking of getting another account to go with it). I decided to make this guy a Gallente ship pilot as, from what I can gather from talking to people and reading on the net, they tend to have the "better" PVP ships. And holy shit does the Megathron look badass, kinda like some sort of 1950's muscle car-tank hybrid.
We started an Amitabha corporation called Amitabha Industries, but that honestly hasn't been going as well as I had hoped. I just don't know much about the game yet and I don't want to spend half my time spamming recruitment only to come across a question, inquiry, or whatnot that I don't understand or can't answer. Unfortunately, Nihilanth doesn't have the time to get on and recruit or much else due to work + DOTA 2 addiction. I plan to keep at it, and have even gotten two members, although they seem to have disappeared the past couple of days. Anyways, here is the new Amitabha logo I created for EVE Online (Yes it is a copy of the EVE logo)
Besides EVE, I've been spending a lot of time in League of Legends. I find it more calming that DOTA 2, where I feel like I've got to be completely on top of my game every time I play. Plus, similar to EVE, DOTA 2 has a lot to learn compared to most other games and that's just not something that interest me right now since I have EVE. I've found that I enjoy playing supports quite a lot - Soraka, Blitzcrank, and Sona being my favorites.
I recently bought Sona, and I do fairly well with her. The bad thing is that I usually end up becoming more of a carry than a support in most of my games. I just can't seem to help it, as my Q just stacks up the kills unintentionally. Right now I only know how to play her well enough where I either do damage or I don't do damage and it's extremely hard for me to notice when I should just sit back and let my ADC do the damage instead of trying to hurt the enemy as much as possible. Most of my games end up with me getting insane K/D for a support, which one of the guildies I usually play with doesn't like at all and he seemed quite pissed about it. It's ended up with me deciding not to play with him (or any of my guild, probably) for the foreseeable future as I can't put up with them being generally low-skilled and assholes at the same time. It's one or the other for me.
Currently I am reviewing Aika Online and I've got to say I'm not to thrilled. I was originally excited because I love games with a strong PVP component, but it was almost completely unbearable to play it. I've come less and less tolerable of generic grinders in recent years, and Aika is definition of generic (quest) grinder. The only saving graces it has are the Prans (which are pretty nice, actually) and the PVP, which has been suffering due to people grouping into one nation and leaving the others severely outnumbered and an overall low population for all nations. I'm almost done with that review and will be re-reviewing Tera Online for MMOHut afterwards.
That's all for now. Back to EVE for me. I'm about one hour away from being able to use Modulated Strip Miner II's with crystals on my main, plus Nihilanth will be moving the BPO that he purchased soon and that will hopefully mean that we can start producing today or tomorrow and a bit more income will come in. Thanks for reading.
