This month has seen a lot of change in New Eden what with the discovery of 4 new stargates and hints of a new system (confirmed as Zarzakh containing a Jovian Station) as well as Fan Fest where players gather in Iceland to hear the latest game news, meet old / new friends and probably drink more and shower less than they should. I have been thinking about going for many years , but the 27 hour flight time has always put me off. In another life I used to spend about the same time (28h) in the air every three months which took the shine off air travel. I can do it, but that doesn’t mean I want to.
Fan Fest brought the announcement of Havoc, the latest expansion in Eve, giving players the opportunity to align with either the Angel Cartel or Guristas pirate factions and aid the mysterious Deathless.
Other reveals were:
A new FPS called Vanguard which will be connected to the Eve universe.
A new ship, but not just any ship, the long awaited Azariel-class Angel Cartel Titan.
Corporation stuff and New Player stuff was also announced along with the elected representatives for the Council of Stellar Management 18. I recognize most of the names and was pleased to see The Oz and Mike Azariah getting the nod. Nosy Gamer put together some very interesting facts.
Alliance Tournament XX will be a thing.
There is a new mobile game called Eve Galaxy conquest.
Plex for Good did some good and Project Discovery is moving into Cancer research.
That about wraps it up, but if you want to full story head over to Eve News. For a review written from afar, check out Wilhelm’s thoughts.
So much old stuff broken and they are still pushing ahead with new stuff which will most likely break more old stuff.
That is about all the Eve news I have this month as my time spent in Eve has diminished. I finally have a half decent internet connection and that brings unlimited downloads which in turn opens up my gaming horizon again. While the connection isn’t fast by any standards, it is a whole lot better than my mobile phone hot spot.
I fired up Steam and had a look at what was on offer. I was interested in Starfield until I read the system requirements. My computer will run Eve in super max full blown mode, but it won’t run Starfield. I know the reviews said the system requirements were high, I just didn’t realize I would need a completely new machine to run it. Steam cleverly remembered that at one point in the last 5 years I viewed Red Dead Redemption 2 and kindly offered me a discount. Not a new game at all, but something I have been looking at off and on over the last few years. It was touted as an FPS game playable off-line and that interested me so I did a bit of research and read a lot of reviews, both positive and negative, and since Steam had it on sale, I grabbed a copy.
This is an Eve blog so I wont bore you with the details, but I will say that like Eve the RDR2 universe is graphically spectacular, the game play is immersive and the playing field is vast. Unlike Eve Online the folks at Rockstar want you to play their game, not your game which becomes a bit tedious after a while. I like the fact that once you get the game running in Story Mode you can drop your internet connection and keep playing. There is an Online multiplayer mode which, if the reviews are to be believed, is populated by hackers and scammers. I wasn’t going there anyway.
Interestingly this is my first foray into a Console based game that has been ported to PC. I have played console games on friends machines, but have never owned a box. Once I got my character ‘Arthur Morgan’ set up I was blown away by the similarities to CCP’s attempt to bring life to stations in Eve. Captains Quarters – remember them? well Arthur was just like my WIS toon, awkward and difficult to control. When WIS launched I was disappointment by the toon control and remember thinking at the time that there must be a better way. I now think it had a lot to do with Dust514 and the concepts CCP were working with at the time.
Anyway, last word on RDR2 is that it is fun, but frustrating. Due to the control porting I tend punch my horse instead of pat him which results in him kicking the living daylights out of me. I also get into a lot of fights by accidentally pulling out a weapon at the most inconvenient time. Converted PC key issues can be solved buying a controller which is something I won’t be doing.
Would I recommend it? Yes, but buy it on special.
Anyway I have strayed off path,
September has seen a reduction in my Eve time and I think know it will decline even more over the next few months. I will log in from time to time to set contracts and a few other things, but don’t plan much before the introduction of Havoc in mid November.
Fly Safe as Always,
Yadot
Yadot 