Yup, 4 years….wow.

Five years ago my wife created a character in EVE online.  I joined her in trying out EVE, but my attention at the time was with another MMORPG.  That game fail cascaded in such a fashion that when someone utters the words, Star Wars Galaxies, well, if you don’t know, go Google it.

So, after that debacle,  I had free time to spend and I thought I would give EVE a go again.  That was four years ago and I tell ya, it’s been a fun ride.  I’ve spent time as a carebear in Empire, fought in many Empire wars, been a solo pirate and merc, been a director of a pirate alliance, fought for a nullsec alliance and most recently, joined HellFleet for more Yarr-ing fun.

I can say that I’ve pretty much done it all.  So, what do you do after four years?  Well, I tell ya, I’ve spent all my time doing these things and it’s always been a surprise how things have gone.  I’ll do what I always have done, just wander about and let things happen.  That’s when you have the most fun, when you get pulled into something.

And now, here are some of the highlights for the week:

• Piracy fun with HellFleet is well underway.  We took down a POS owned by an inactive corp.  Much fun ensued, read the whole story over at Mynxee’s blog, The Measure of Success!
• ProviWar continues (http://www.eve-druid.com/ProviWar).  I may no longer be fighting as a Warrior of the Ushra’Khan, but I can’t stop watching what’s going on.  They are still my friends and I do hope they succeed in these operations.  -A- continue their push into Providence, Sylph is no more (congratulations to Ushra’Khan) and things continue to progress as -A- takes sov in Y-MPWL and Ushra’Khan takes G-5EN2.  This closed the connections from Providence to High Sec space in Tash-Murkon and NPC 0.0 in Derelik respectively.  The only other high sec entrance/exit into Providence is now the R3-K7K/Misaba gate as all other systems high sec entrance/exit points have been taken.  It is highly likely that this system will also fall by this weekend as I can see while I finish up this blog post on Thursday evening, CVA has lost sov there.  With the only other logistical option being the use of jump freighters to get materials into the region and no guarantee of safely flying out said jump freighters, it will only be a matter of time before they regions completely falls.  CVA and friends are very neatly boxed into their space.
• CCP released a very open and honest devblog concerning the server stability issues that have been plaguing the game since late November.  I know I have been very critical of CCP for these issues in the past.  I want to say, this devblog is a step in the right direction.  The more technical information concerning these issues is communicated will lead to more of us who work with these technologies being able to provide help.  Keep it coming CCP, we are here to help you and we are more than willing.
• CCP “Laser Focus” God Torfi was interview at Ten Ton Hammer on the upcoming Tyrannis Expansion, read all about the cool stuff they are going to do with Planetary Interaction.
• Silver Night has announced a fiction writing contest with some decent prizes, head over and get out those writing tools!
• The next EVE novel, EVE: The Burning Life, is available for pre-order on Amazon.com for less than the listing price.  The novel should be released on March 30th as per the Amazon ordering page.  Head over and order your copy today!
• More and more people are posting pictures of their “EVESpace”, you can read all about them.
• EVOGANDA has put together a little something for all us iPhone/iPod Touch users, some wallpapers!  Check them out!
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download files Mandrill and I maintain continues.  Head over and see who we added this week!

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It was a glorious mess and it had been a long time coming. Unity Station had been freed after years of fighting. Now came the push further into Providence. CVA had been defeated again and again. They would continue to push deeper into their space.

CVA will fall. The death blow had been delivered, the rest of the body did not know it yet.

Ga’len stood, as best as the many spirits he had consumed would allow him. It was a hard fight, but he was finally aboard Unity Station.

“So,” Ga’len began to speak to a recently freed slave, “What do you plan to do now?”

“Well, the man over there,” the freed slave spoke while gesturing towards Xious and his gaggle of love,” he said, or rather slurred heavily, that I should speak with you.”

“Oh, what about?” Ga’len was looking at this man’s very intense look on his face.

“Well,” continued the man,” I think you may know about my daughter.”

***

Moments later…

“Whoa. I must have had to drink than I thought,” Ga’len said slowly. He was lying on the floor of the hanger, looking up at this man, “I thought you just said something about your daughter.”

“I did, but, uhm, perhaps you should let me explain,” continued the man as he extends his hand down to Ga’len, “I am Karled. Xious tells me that you have been taking care of a young girl that may be my daughter.”

Karled shows Ga’len a photograph of a younger Breanne. “Please, have you seen her?”

Ga’len graciously takes Karled’s hand and is helped to his feet. “Good sir, yes, my sister and I have been taking care of her. I will take you to her at once.”

Karled exclaimed, “Oh thank the Gods!”

Ga’len and Karled made it quickly across the hanger decks to Ga’len’s Vagabond, An Bealach an Vaga. After securing Karled in the rarely used passengers section, Ga’len got into his pod, his “Jovian Spud” as he sometimes called it and engaged the loading mechanism.

Undocking from Unity Station in 9UY4-H was fast and simple, not a single slaver in sight. As Ga’len willed his ship into motion, he willed the internal ship comms into life and brought Karled up to speed on the event leading to the discovery of his missing daughter.

“I can’t thank you enough. My wife is in Z-RFE3, looking for Breanne at the station there,” continued Karled, “Is it possible to send her word as to where we are going?”

“The panel in front of you should be active now,” Ga’len spoke from his mind’s voice over the internal comms, “Let her know that we will be arriving at the station in 15 minutes. Breanne is with my sister at the station in D-GTMI. I will be happy to take you both there .”

Ten minutes later, Ga’len jumped into a gate camp. Several tackler ships and a few battle cruisers to provide the damage dealing needed to destroy a target.

“Sod it,” Ga’len mutters in his mind. He aligns to a planet and engages his micro warp drive. The local comms channels come alive as Ga’len yells in his mind, “SLAVERS REPENT! LEAVE NOW AND YOU SHALL LIVE!”

The panel in front of Karled displays the visuals outside the ship. He chuckles to himself as the entire Slyph gate camp simply flees into random directions away from the gate.

“So,” Karled speaks slowly, “They flee before a single ship?”

Ga’len chuckles in his mind as he engages the internal comms, “The slavers who held this space know that they are defeated.  It’s time for them to protect what they have left, tuck tail and run.  We shall be in Z-R soon, I am alerting my sister, Leainati, that we will be arriving in D-GTMI later today.”

A few minutes later, Ga’len had his vagabond docked in station safely.  Karled and Ga’len made their way from the hanger decks where they happened upon a very petite woman.  She had to be Breanne’s mother.  It was her eyes, they were so blue.  She was trembling and it had been obvious that she had been crying recently.  She tried to speak, but her voice failed her.

“Ma’am, I am Ga’len.  Breanne is safe, she’s with my sister in D-GTMI.  If you come this way, we will head there immediately.”

She said nothing, just smiled broadly as we turned back towards the hanger.

“Ga’len,” Karled spoke, “This is my wife Taren.”  Taren nodded as they quickly walked toward the hanger.

“Don’t you worry,” Ga’len said quickly, “We will be there soon.  My sister Leainati is expecting us.  If I know her, she’s already alerted our fellow warriors to help  secure our route, we should get there within the hour.”

“Is she….how is….,” Taren’s voice was very shaky, she could barely speak.

“She is safe and unharmed, ” Ga’len assured Taren, “She’s a beautiful child.  Yes, she has all her fingers and toes and none the worse for wear so to speak.  She does think that you two were killed when you were taken away, but that will all be over very soon.  Let’s get you two aboard and get going.”

***

The trip to D-GTMI was fast and fortunately, without incident.  Many Warriors of the Ushra’Khan who were in systems they had to travel through were actively providing intel on enemy movements.  Before Ga’len realized it, they were on final approach to the station in D-GTMI.

Docking was quick as everyone had been alerted by Leainati that Ga’len had VIP passengers for D-GTMI station.  She told everyone who the passengers were, but to keep things quiet around Breanne.

They were greeted by Leainati on the hanger deck, she spoke warmly as Karled and Taren were climbing down the embarkation ramp, “Breanne does not know you are here, I wanted to keep this a surprise.  She’s on her way to the hanger as the thinks that ‘Uncle Twig’ is here for a quick visit.”

Karled and Taren looked at each other and then towards Ga’len with a shared questioning look between them.

“Well, she took to me.  She’s a wonderful child, ” Ga’len smiled as he spoke, “everyone in Ushra’Khan has become her family these past few weeks.”

As they approached the corridor doors, they parted and out came running Breanne.  She looked at Ga’len and then stopped dead in her tracks.  Her eyes wide, she stood with her jaw agape.

Ga’len walked over to Breanne and knelt down on one knee and spoke, “My little acorn, look who I found.”

Breanne’s eyes filled with tears as she slowly began to walk.  Taren fell to her knees and she started to cry uncontrollably as Breanne started to run towards them.  They all knelt there on the floor, hugging each other and crying.

Leainati walked over to her brother as he stood up, “How in the world did you find them?”

Ga’len shrugged, “He found me, said he heard from Xious that we were taking care of a little girl.  He showed me a photograph of Breanne and I thought it would be best to get back here as soon as possible.”

They all gathered back together near the corridor door.  Taren had regained some of her composure, walked up to Ga’len and gently slapped him across the face.

Ga’len was slightly stunned and glared at her as she spoke, “I hate all of you Amarrian bastards.  Your people took us away from our daughter but you are not like your people are you?  You take that slap to your face and you return it to them ten fold.”

“No, I am not,” Ga’len continued, “I hated how my family kept and abused slaves.  It’s why I left that place.  Don’t you worry, that slap has been delivered to them time and time again.”

Karled spoke, “And now -A- and Ushra’Khan are freeing Providence from that slaver oppresion.”

“Yes, they have,” Ga’len agreed, “We came for our people and now, my work here is done.”

Ga’len smiled as Leainati looked at him, “I joined Ushra’Khan with the hope of helping them return to their home at Unity Station.  I joined them to help re-light the fires of hope, to light the beacons of truth.  That part of my work is finished now.”

“So, with the slavers in Providence all but completely dead,” Leainati asks, “What will you do now?”

“I shall return to that which I know best,” Ga’len replied, “I shall go back to being the rogue who wandered.  That was my home, it’s time I returned.”

Breanne looked up at Ga’len as he slowly knelt down to the ground, “My little acorn, oh my child, I must leave.  It is time for me to go. Don’t you worry, my friends in Hellfleet are expecting me.”

Karled spoke, “Well, we can’t stay here.  It’s still not that safe for us.  May we come with you?  We will find a way to pay you.”

Breanne threw her arms around Ga’len’s neck and hugged him, “Please take us with you!”

“If you wish, I will take you all with me,” Ga’len assured them, “but you need not worry about money.  Loving hugs are the best currency.  I must head back to Unity Station to say by goodbyes.

***

Back at Unity Station, the meeting hall was almost empty as Ga’len walked through the door.  He was wearing his old clothes and was carrying a satchel with his Ushra’Khan uniform.

There was no one from leadership there as he had hoped.  They were all called away for another battle.  There was a note left for him however.  It read simply, “We will miss you, Ga’len, take care.  Keep the uniform,  you may be back one day as the Ushra’Khan bug is not easily ‘cured’.  We would have been here to say goodbye, but we had to go…for our people.”

Ga’len smiled as he looked out the window.  He saw the massive fleet warp away to battle.  They would free Providence of the slavers, that was to be sure.

For him, it was time to head back to D-GTMI, collect his “family” and head to his new home in low security space.  The time for piracy had returned.

More of The Bleeding Rose

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Here’s a few of this week’s highlights:

• “EVE player wins Olympic medal“, that was the headline over at Game Reactor.  Nthraller of Morsus Mihi won the Silver Medal in the Giant Slalom (http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1274589).  Head over to the thread and offer your congratulations, this is tuly epic.
• Seismic Stan wrote a very interesting article on EVE Online and how this particular MMORPG seems to be very pervasive in our real lives.  He explores the reasons behind this observation.  Head over and read his post, Bastard! / Our Health and EVE.
• I hear there was something about CK and his blog stuff, you can read about it all if you so desire.
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download continues.  Head over and see who we added this week!

Oh, one more thing, before I forget.  Chocolips started a meme this week when she asked, “What’s in your EVESpace?”   Many people have been posting photos of their computer rigs.  If you want to catch up on all the posts, you can read about them here.

This is my setup:

I must admit, mine is a tad spartan in that I don’t have anything hanging on the walls in the den.  We moved into this house in August and we are still getting settled.  It works for me.

See you out there!

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I’ve read the comments and I want to thank everyone who has listed my blog as a potential inclusion for CK’s blog pack.  It’s gratifying to see that many people like my blog’s content and I am truly touched.

However, I am a bit torn by some of the discussion I am seeing on this topic and I too want to chime in here.

Roc of Roc’s Ramblings voiced some personal opinions concerning the elitist concept around the formation of a blog pack.  I posted my comments on his blog, but I have more to say and I didn’t want to cloud up the discussion.

I feel the need to point out that Casiella Truza posted a good response asking everyone to stop being all emo about this situation.  I need to quote my friend here because he has a great point:

But you know what really gets me madder than a sack of hornets? When a sense of ownership turns into a sense of entitlement. “The list is popular and therefore we should get to decide what’s in it, because otherwise I will be sad and left out and the community will die.” As much as I appreciate CK’s hard work, the EVE community won’t die based on what one single person does or doesn’t do. We’ve grown past that. I’ll keep writing what I write (and so will many of you) because of the people that read it, not because I want some badge of approval from one single person.

People feel like they are being excluded because they are not in CK’s blog pack not listed in Capsuleer and that’s why they are all acting emo.  I agree with Casiella and this is why.

You should really take a look at the many other things the community has down on it’s own without  CK taking the lead to help us all grow.  A few of them are listed here:

• I created an OPML file of EVE blogs well before I ever met CK, however he was one of the many bloggers who suggested make it public for everyone to use.
• 00sage00 created the tweetfleet.
• Alexia Morgan created The EVE Online Portal (evebloggers.com) for all EVE blogs to have a fair shot of exposure to the world.
• Eddie Gordo created PodLogs to provide a place for anyone who wanted to blog about EVE to be able to do so easily.
• Mandril created the “streamlined OPML download” based on my original work years before meeting CK.  Mandril is also working on a categorized directory for all the EVE blogs.

All these endeavors have done very well under the guidance of the EVE Blogging Community in general.  We all build and contribute to our community in such a way that is inclusive of everyone.  We don’t isolate those few from obtaining the traffic that they should be able to obtain.  We keep things fair and we have done so very well.  We always have and we always will.

And for a final note, no, you don’t have to be listed in CK’s Blog Pack to be in Capsuleer.  This discussion has come up before and it’s mentioned on their forums.  Head over  and simply ask to be included in the application.  Work Roc and Pyjamasam and see what your options are.  There is a lot of love that goes into developing Capsuleer, you should share in that effort and respect their time, an offer of  compensation for their work would be most welcome.

What would a post about our community discussing an issue without yet another shared Google Items page.  Yes, I am a Google Reader shared items whore and I am proud of it.

You can catch all the content I am aware on this issue at:  http://www.eve-druid.com/ckbpd.  If I’ve missed anyone, comment here and I will get you added into the page.

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No, I have not met myself in EVE, but I did find something I was not expecting.

I was running some plexes in our nullsec space.  It was a quite Sunday evening for me and I wanted to grind away for some isk.  I scan down a plex, warp in and I find this floating in space:

I am thinking, what is this, some kind of new asteroid layout for plex sites?  I click on the object and I begin to laugh.  I can’t believe what I am seeing.  I check the info and this is what I see:

Yup, Stonehenge in Space.  I fell out of my chair laughing.  For over three years this Druid has wandered through New Eden and finally, I find the standing stones of the ancients, floating in space.

Hats off to CCP, this little gem is well placed in my humble opinion, but I may be biased.

See you out there!

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It’s cool, it’s fresh and worthy of a big thank you for what he is working to do.

He’s has a OPML file that only contains active blogs.  WOOT!

It’s streamlined and has constant maintenance to adjust for blogs that are no longer active so that you will always have access to fresh content.  He will be rotating our old blogs that are no longer active, that is, blogs that have not had a post made over a set period of time.

Why do this?  Well, OPML files grow over time with more and more blogs and you get to the point that managing such a large file becomes very time intensive.  Maintaining a OPML that only has active bloggers in it provides for a better reading experience.  It’s also gentler on the RSS reader as it doesn’t  have to check hundreds of blogs that have no updates.  Google Reader will thank you.

Head over to http://keithneilson.co.uk/eve-bloggers-opml-download for your OPML file for the most fresh EVE blogging content.

As for the OPML file I used to maintain, I will continue to do so, however, this file is more of an archive of EVE blogs, both active and quiet.  It’s nice to read the old blogs from time to time for perspective, older guides that are still useful, etc.

The EVE Player Blogs Archive OPML file:

http://www.eve-druid.com/opml/EVE_Player_Blogs_OPML.opml

And of course, you will always be able to read all the latest posts from the EVE Blogging Community at The EVE Online Portal at http://www.evebloggers.com.

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I twittered last night that I was not making a Friday post as I was very frustrated with the game breaking bugs dealing with sov.  I said I did not want to make the post because I really did not want to rant.  I also received many emails, both in and out of game, for a summary of the situation.  So, I broke down and wrote the post.  I am still frustrated and I will try not to rant, just convey the situation and then get on with the normal Friday post stuff.

There are a few blogs that have discussed these issues with the two systems in question.  Those systems being  Z-REF3 and 3D-CQU, where bugs with the sov mechanic have broken game play:

• To Me. To You. To Me. To You.
• Broken Record

The following thread on the EVE forums sums up the issue:

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1270539

In short, there are two systems, Z-REF3 and 3D-CQU, where sov can not be obtained.  The TCU goes online, you are awarded sov and then 20 to 48 minutes later the TCU goes offline and you loose sov.  Bringing a TCU online again and 8 hours later, the same issue.  U’K and AM have been dealing with this bug for literally days now with TCU’s going online every 8 hours and dropping sov less than an hour after that point.

Petitions have been submitted and CCP’s response to date has been less than stellar. I am not going into the responses, I don’t want to rant.  CCP is really dropping the ball on this one.  You would think that Ushra’Khan may be just ranting here, playing the COAD games, but that’s not the case.  Our enemies are supporting us on EVE Forums posts concerning this issue.

So, for all those people who were on the fence when Goonswarm made their claims that Dominion and it’s new sov mechanic was still in the Alpha level of development and not worthy of even being called a “Beta Test”, you should take note of this issue.

For all of us who saw this same issue on the test server prior to Dominion going live, well,  it’s very familiar and at the same time disappointing.  You would think that code from the test server would have been resolved before being rolled into production.  I have to say at this point and I can’t believe I am about to write these words, I agree with the folks in Goonswarm concerning the new sov mechanic.  Nullsec warfare is broken to the point that it’s simply not playable.

Please understand me here, I don’t agree with the Goonswarm position that the new sov mechanics are bad.   I think the new sov mechanic is a great change for the game and I want to see the new sov mechanics be used in game.  My issue is not with the mechanics themselves, my issue is that the testing on the test server showed obvious game breaking bugs with the new sov mechanics that needed further testing and tweaking.  These same issues were obviously not resolved when Dominion was brought onto Tranquility, hence the current issues.

I hope this was not too much of a rant.  Ahem, now that is out of the way, on to more items of note:

• Bugs notwithstanding, the ProviWar feed continues to grow with more material.
• Rooks and Kings had a great kill in the past few weeks of a Goonswarm freighter with a 155 billion isk price tag.
• Someone in my corp shared a funny TeamSpeak recording of a EVE pilot making a phone sex call.  It’s made the rounds, but I had to share it again.  WARNING, NSFW.  Enjoy the lols, but do take note that the lovely lady made one heck of an effort to keep the call on track.
• George Allen Miller wrote an interesting article, Star Trek Online Versus Eve Online revisited, comparing Star Trek Online to EVE Online.  He states that “…but STO was doomed from the start…”.  Go read the entire article, it’s a good one.
• Shameless plug for the folks over at EVE Development Network.  They have been working very hard on EDK 3.0, the newest version of their very popular killboard web application.  I recently upgraded to their new version and let me say, it’s a dream.  The built in support for a single pilot killboard was a major feature I was looking forward to using.  I’ve been using their application for years and I have to say, they have outdone themselves.  Good job guys and thank you for all the hard work!
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download continues.  Head over and see who we added this week!

See you out there!

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• The war in Providence continues.  It’s no longer a matter of a few systems but the entire region now.  As 9UY4-H fell on Monday and with -A- and it’s allies continuing it’s push, many say it will only be a matter of time before CVA disbands.  Some think that CVA will dissolve itself from it’s current form and head into faction warfare as that may be the only place they will be able to continue their role playing gaming style.  The reality is, unless CCP changes major parts of the Amarr/Minmatar story with the freeing of all slaves in New Eden, there will always be room for the role play side of the game.  Many people have written about the events in the Provi-war.  I’ve consolidated the D-GTMI and 9UY4-H Google items into the ProviWar feed.  You can catch all the blog posts, public forums postings and/or videos by subscribing to the feed itself.  More to come as things unfold but I will say this.  Monday was a day that will live in the heart of every Warrior of the Ushra’Khan.  Fighting at the side of -A-, Ushra’Khan was able to re-take 9UY4-H and Unity Station.
• Karn Mithralia made a great post on the EVE Forums Intergalactic Summit section relating to the retaking of Unity Station, head over and read [UNITY] – The Fire that Burns Within!
• Additionally, Ushra’Khan  and allies began taking systems from Sylph when they pulled a Goonswarm and forgot to pay their alliance bills.  They were able to take the J6QB-P  system and station, despite server crashes rolling the station damage indicators from zero armor and shields and less than 60 percent structure to 100 percent structure and 50 percent on shields and armor.  To relieve some of the frustration of that database failure, the station has been renamed for the time being, “C C P roll back  UK does not“.  I am sure a different name will be put into place by alliance leadership in the future.
• The Fan Fiction Blogfest #2 is still going on, head on over and join in the fun, write an entry today!
• Roc over at Roc’s Ramblings has some wonderful posts this week.  First head over read A hero address the world and then a  wonderful fiction post called Lament, head over and take the time to read it, it’s awesome!
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download continues.  Head over and see who we added this week!

Now we have the discussion point I mentioned at the beginning of this post.  It relates to the siege of J6QB-P and the rollback event that occurred.

No, this is not a rant, only some observations and yes, it’s open for discussion as it’s a good topic for discussion.

Petitions were filed by many on the damage rollback issue.  Below is a copy of the responses from one of the GM’s:

Hi there,

I am sorry to hear what happened. My theory is that since the server underwent an ungraceful shutdown (in other words, it crashed), the state for the station (its shield, armor and structure level) wasn’t saved correctly to our database, and was therefore reverted to an earlier state when the server came back up.

Now, the problem with this, is that since the information was simply not saved correctly, it is not possible for us to verify in which exact state the station was in when the server crash happened. That means that we will sadly not be able to take any action here, as our logs surrounding the event are simply not conclusive.

I don’t doubt your description of the event, but my hands are simply tied due to the lack of verification from our end. I am sorry for this inconvenience.

Best regards,
Senior GM Lelouch
EVE Online Customer Support

Obviously this is not the response that anyone wants to ever see, that the data for the literally DAYS of shooting a station was simply lost.  This response is, however, one of the better responses I have even seen from a GM for this sort of issue.

Their position was explained clearly, not a simple “log show nothing” answer, but a valid, honest explanation.  One who puts in such a petition would see an insult as ‘your word is not good enough’.

I would have to disagree with that simply because there are those people who would make such a petition and falsely recount the problem.   It’s called cheating and unfortunately, this is why the GM’s take this stance on this sort of issue. Unless they have valid evidence in the way of database records,  there is nothing that can really be done.

Or is there something that they can do?  By their own admission, the database was not saved correctly due to the crash and thus the integrity of all the data pertaining to that time frame comes into question.   That is an issue that leaves me with some questions of my own.

Let me explain.  Every time you shoot a gun, ammo is consumed.  Crystals have a usage indicator, listed as damage.  Projectile, missile and hybrid ammo counts are reduced.  All that ammo usage is recorded by the inventory system with the usage indicator and location, mainly a weapon on a ship object.  Same goes for stront used by a dread in siege.   Ship objects are recorded in the database with your location sx, sy, sz.

So, when you shoot your ship, that means the inventory system records the removal of ammo, A1, from gun, G1, for ship, S1, at location s1x, s1y, s1z.  If you take that information from the database and match it up with the location of the station object in system and you can now establish that the station was in fact taking damage.

If  you expand the search for all inventory reduction events recorded in that time frame with other ships x, y, z locations in close proximity to the station object and you can confirm who was shooting at the station at the time.  You can not confirm the actual damage done sadly or any repairing done by the opponent using the inventory system.  So, for those of you thinking that the inventory reduction events data could be used to adjust the damage indicators for the station, I am sad to say that simply can not be effectively done.

However, in this case, the station damage was not recorded.  If all that data was lost, hours of damage indicator updates sent to hundreds of game clients, hours of inventory updates made for the ammo being used, hours of drones being used and/or lost, Stront consumed by dreads in siege, why was the only data rolled back the station damage indicators? 

What happened to all the ammo?  What happened to all the drones that were destroyed?  What happened to all the stront consumed?  Why was that data not rolled back?

If the database updates for damage taken/repaired for the station were not saved, then the ammo, stront and drones should still be there, is that not correct?  One would logically think so.

So, the questions for discussion are these:

Since the damage to the station can not be verified, why was the inventory system not returned to the same previous state for all those who were in system at the time?

How do you resolve the lost isk for ammo and/or stront consumed for damage that was not realized?

Should CCP be looking into the inventory system for such petitions and return ammo/stront used during a “rollback event” where the results of that used ammo/stront were not realized?

Can such incomplete database cleanups lead to other database inconsistencies?  Would these potentially be the source of all the crashes we have been seeing?

These are some of the questions that come to mind.  Please feel free to comment on this blog post or write a post of your own with your thoughts on this.  Feel free to answer any or all of these questions.

Personally, I think that CCP should be returning the ammo and stront that was used.

It’s a matter of examining the inventory system and placing those consumed items back into the respective hangers of the pilots whom their ship and character objects were present in the system with recorded inventory events at the time.

It’s the least they can do for having a server crash and “rollback time several hours” for a station that was under siege.

See you out there mates!

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• “Reunions and farewells…” (4)
• “Let me ’splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up…” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride (1987) (12)
• Around and around she goes, where sov will land, well, the TCU doesn’t know… (5)
• “At long last we come…” (14)
• Time has a code??!!??!?!?! (5)

For many of the Ushra’Khan, it’s been a long time coming.  Unity Station was a place of honor and for these past years a taste of the bitterness of betrayal still lingered.  It was a beacon of freedom, a beacon that fell to treachery.  The time was upon them now, the time that had restlessly stirred in their hearts.

Everyone was in their hangars, preparing their ships.  Dreadnaughts, battleships, cruisers, we would need them all.  It had been many years and a long road, but the end was near.  It was time to come home.

“Uncle Twig, what’s going on?”

A small child was standing in the hanger, looking at an Amarrian man dressed in the uniform of a Warrior of the Ushra’Khan.

“My little acorn, you should be in bed sleeping,” Ga’len responded.  He walked over to the child and scooped her up in his arms, “It’s bed time for you.  We have much to do.”

“Are you leaving?” she spoke with a tearful voice, “I don’t want you to disappear!”

Ga’len walks over to her and kneels down as he speaks softly, “My little acorn, I will be back soon.  I have work to do,” he continued, “Do you see those people over there, the Capsuleers from -A-?  They are going with us too.  We have the honor of standing and fighting at their side.”

“I don’t understand what is going on,” she spoke as she buried her head against Ga’len’s chest.

“Breanne my child, tell me, what do you know of Unity Station?” Ga’len asked.

Breanne looked up at his face, her eyes grew wide with wonder, “My mommy used to tell me of it, tell me stories.  It was a beacon of hope for us, you know, the Minmatar.  It was a symbol she used to say.”

“Yes, my child,” Ga’len continued, “a symbol of strength, fellowship and defiance in the face of Amarrian oppression.”

“My dad said it was lost to the Amarr in a horrible defeat long ago,” she continued, “he used to cry when he talked about it.  He lost many friends who were trapped when everyone had to flee.”

“My little acorn, tonight we return to Unity Station, ” Ga’len lifts her chin so he can see her face, “Tonight we go and free our people.”

Breanne stands with a look of shock on her face.  Slowly a look of understanding crosses her face.  She smiles and raises her right arm, making a fist with her hand.

Ga’len smiles, leans forward and kisses her softly on her forehead, “I will return to you and Aunt Leainati soon,” he motions to his sister as she walks toward them, “but I must go and help my brothers and sisters tonight.”

“Be careful my brother, ” Leainati speaks with a smile, “Fight with courage, fight fierce, we will hold the line here.  Free our people.”

Many years ago, a strong few took it upon themselves to join together.  With fists raised high, they struck back at their oppressors.  With fists raised high, they beat back the storm.  With fists raised high, they planted the acorn in a field of hatred, a field that would reject them and try to push them into darkness, back into the storm.

Through blood and fire they fought.  Through humble honor, they sought friends in the storm.  Together with honor, together in strength they fought hard.  Never yielding, never waning, they took back what was theirs.

They were the ones who planted the acorn so long ago, the acorn that grew into a sapling of hope, the sapling that grew into a tree a freedom.  A tree that was hacked by axes of betrayal, a tree that bears the scars of oppression, a tree that now stands free in a Forest of Unity.

Oak and Ash, Birch and Yew, together they stand among the burned fields of hatred. Oak and Ash, Birch and Yew, together they now stand blinding the darkness with the light of freedom.  Oak and Ash, Birch and Yew, together they are the shelter against the storms of oppression.

At long last, the saplings grow free again.  At long last they stand under the branches of the Tree of Unity.  At long last, we have come….for our people.

More of The Bleeding Rose

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So, what’s the stuff from this week?:

• There is a lot of news concerning the fall of the D-GTMI system pretty much all over the place. The EVE Forums, the EVE Blogging Community, Kugutsumen as well as many other places. There are even a few YouTube videos from the battle in D-GTMI. In a nutshell, Paxton Federation held the system for over three years and when it came time to defend it from -A-, they lost the fight. Many reasons were cited from server lag (which was very bad although the node the NOT crash) to poor FC work to inexperienced combatants on the field. As to what the future holds for D-GTMI and PXF, that remains to be seen. It should however, be interesting to watch unfold.
• Against All Authorities offered an olive branch to CVA after CVA’s failure to invade Catch as well as their loss of the D-GTMI system. CVA continued to be the arrogant aggressor and as a result -A- and it’s allies continue their response with an invasion of 9UY4-H. As of the writing of this blog post, 9UY4-H is under siege. There are both EVE forum posts and a few blogs posts on this battle so far and as always, I am more than willing to share what I find, enjoy!
• Nullsec space drama continues to unfold. On Wednesday, Goonswarm disbanded. Many say this was only the natural course as a problem with maintaining isk in the correct divisions of the executer corp’s wallet led to the loss of key systems in Delve. After listening to the recorded meeting that Goonswarm held and their internal declaration that they were moving back to Syndicate, I initially though this was part of their plan. In that meeting, you clearly hear that the main speaker called the current sov mechaincs (in beta). They seemed to make sense that they would pull out of 0.0 altogether, until you read the post from kartton, the alliance director responsible for the sov loss in the first place. His post titled ‘Dear Goonfleet’ pretty much sums up the Goonswarm mindset of “Frak it all” as he simply took what isk was left and ran. In EVE online, you “adapt or die“. Goonswarm had to adapt to the new sov mechanics as well as the changes to the Titan Doomsday weapon from being an area of effect, grid clearing weapon to a single target weapon. They simply could no longer win fights with large fleets holding people on a grid and using a Titan to ‘clear the board’. Adapt or die, they simply could not do this. Their attitude that the’ sov mechanics are in beta’ reflects this inability to change and thus the infighting must have grown within alliance leadership. Cal over at the Wild at Heart blog has a great post on what happened. As more information becomes available, you can catch the updates at yet another of my Google shared items,Goonsfall.
• Casiella over at Ecliptic Rift has started a Tumblr blog. So, being the social creatrue that I am, I caved to peer pressure and created one as well, http://eve-druid.tumblr.com. I plan to use my Tumblr blog in the same fashion as Casiella, to post things that don’t make it into my blog here or things that I can’t easily share with Google Reader.
• Akura kawanaka of Eve Monkey announced that Fan Fiction Blogfest #2 is underway. You can read all the posts in yes, yet another Google shared item (Google should send more advertising dollars my way for all the props they get from me!)
• One of my favorite sites, EVE Travel, moved to a new home this week. Head over to http://evetravel.wordpress.com and see why it’s a great site. Mark726 fly around New Eden and bring you photos of all the landmarks in game. It will take him a while, but it’s worth following the journey. The “Wanderer” in me just keeps bringing me back to the site.
• CCP announced that they have learned a lot from their testing for the lag in fleet battles. Be sure to read the ENTIRE dev blog as there are some very useful tips on how to deal with these lag situations. It’s a good read and should be something you stop right now and do. I especially liked this part of the dev blog in reference to the final battle in D-GTMI: “On Jan 28^th, we had a 1600 person fleet fight on Tranquility which our team monitored closely, keeping the node alive using methods that make our system admins faint. This was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, fleet fight ever in EVE (at least where the node survived the ordeal). This event allowed us to identify what was causing some of these glitches and deploy fixes live.” So, they finally listened to us, went to a system where the fleet fight request system was used for node reinforcement and actually monitored a live fleet fight 0n the production server. LO AND BEHOLD, THEY WERE ABLE TO IDENTIFY SOMETHING TO HELP THEM RESOLVE THIS ISSUE! Ahem…Well, finally they are listening to the stakeholders and we are again able to work together. Better late than never, thank you CCP. I for one am more than willing to continue to help resolve these issues, let’s keep that collaboration going!
• Manasi over at A Mule in EVE wrote a response to the CCP dev blog on lag and very accurately voiced a valid issue about some of the survival tips for fleet lag.  He feels that the concept of clicking a module to activate it once and wait 8 minutes for the time out is unreasonable.  I happen to agree with him.  Read the whole post and participate in the discussion.
• As always, update work for the blogs listed on The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download continues. I am continually amazed at the number of blogs that we have listed.

See you out there mates!

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February’s topic:
————————–
The end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010 has seen the beginnings of many nullsec wars: The Triumverate coalition is invading the Northern Coalition from Pure blind. Wildly Inapropriate has been forced out of Geminate. IT alliance has obliterated Pandemic Legion and Sons of Tangra in fountain. Goonswarm have been forced to retreat out of Delve/Querious into Syndicate, and there have been major border clashes between the providence block holders and -A-/Ushra’Khan/Systematic Chaos.

Everyone has been affected in some way. Write the story of someone affected by these changes. Whether it be a wife who has lost their husband working at a conquered station, or a pod pilot who has been brought to financial ruin, or a weapons manufacturer rubbing his hands in glee at the booming business. We have all been affected.
————————-

…since the great battle for D-GTMI and still, there are signs of the carnage everywhere.  Bodies of fallen slaver scum are still piled in some places in the station.  Most have been disposed of, but there were so many to fight, so many to kill.  Their stench burns your nose like a fire of rotting flesh, pervading your every pore of your skin.

And yet, those slaves who have been freed from their oppressors are not working to clean up the station.  They sit on the floor, huddled in clean blankets, clutching the warm cups of soup to their chests as if letting go would mean death.  They sit, sip, eat and watch others work to clean up the dead.  They have toiled enough, it was their time to rest, recover and begin their new lives of freedom.

There is a small child, sitting in a corner.  She is shaking as if freezing to death.  Her eyes are filled with horror filled days gone past these 7 years of her life.  She was born a slave and has known only Amarr oppression.  As her eyes look up at the warrior standing above her, the emblem she sees causes all those years to leave her small frame and joy fills her face.

She’s watching him closely.  This man, this warrior is ripping down the propaganda of their old oppressors from the walls.  Many of the posters are stained with blood.  He looks down from his work and sees this little girl.  To her shock, he is Amarrian.

“I thought they killed all you scum,” her voice shaking with fear but her eyes filled with a boldness of strength of a woman twice her size.

All movement in the hallway freezes as is the air had suddenly turned to ice.  Everyone’s eyes turn to look at this little girl and the man cleaning the walls.

Ga’len lowers himself onto one knee to look this little girl in the eyes.  He just looks at her for a moment and speaks with the soft kind voice of a father speaking to a beloved daughter, “My friend, I may be of Amarrian birth, but I know what my people have done to you is wrong,” Ga’len continues, “We are all human, all part of the same family and I will not sit by and let my brothers and sisters enslave you or anyone else.  What is your name child?”

Slowly she looks around and sees that everyone is staring at the two of them.  Everyone is smiling at her and Ga’len, “I am Breanne,” she says.

“Breanne, I am Ga’len.  My child, you saw this emblem on my shoulder?”, Ga’len looks deep in her eyes as he points to the markings on his clothing.  She looks at the emblem and holds up her small hands, making a fist with her right hand, mirroring the emblem.  Chuckles are heard in the hallway as everyone continues to watch this conversation unfold.

“You wear the mark of a Warrior of the Ushra’Khan,” Breanne says.

“That’s right Breanne,” Ga’len continues, “I am a Warrior of the Ushra’Khan.  We fight to free our brothers and sisters from slavery and oppression.  We fight to save you.”

Slowly thoughts cross Breanne’s face. With a confused look she asks, “But that would mean that you kill your own kind, doesn’t it?”

Ga’len smiles as he speaks, “My little acorn, I would fight and kill those who would harm other humans,” he points to a pile of dead Amarrians, “Those people stopped being human the day they raised an oppressive hand and struck you down to the ground.”

“Little acorn?” she asks, “What is a little acorn?”

“An acorn is a seed, it’s what you plant in the ground to grow tree,” Ga’len replies.

He glances up to see Leainati walking over.  She has huge grin on her face from watching her brother speaking with this child, “Think of it this way.  An acorn is the baby that becomes the sapling.  The sapling is the child that becomes the tree.  When you grow up, your branches mingle with the other trees in the forest, sheltering the acorns below that will one day begin to grow.”

Breanne looks up at Leainati as she too lowers herself onto her knees.

“Breanne, I am Leainati,” Leainati bows her head as she introduces herself, “I see you have met my brother.”

“Brother?  But he’s Amarrian and you are Minmatar, aren’t you?” Breanne asks.

“Actually, I am only half Minmatar.  Ga’len and I have the same mother but his father was Amarrian, mine was Minmatar.”, responds Leainati, “Half brother, part of our beloved family and fellow Warrior of the Ushra’Khan.”

“He’s your brother, wow.  That’s messed up,” comments Breanne.

Everyone looks at Ga’len intently.  Ga’len looks between Leainati and Breanne’s faces.  He smiles and a small chuckle grows in his chest.  He begins to shake slightly as the chuckle grows into a louder laugh.  As if he can’t contain it anymore, he roars into a very healthy laughter.  Slowly the laughter spreads around the hallway and everyone feels the tension become blissfully thin.

“Yes my little acorn, it is a bit messed up, but at least I get to have a wonderful sister,” Ga’len smirks at Leainati.

“Okay Twig, enough of that,” Leainati smack Ga’len on his shoulder.

“Twig?  I thought his name was Ga’len?” Breanne asks.

“I call him Twig when he’s being silly,” Leainati continues, “So Breanne, where is your family?  Are they here on the station?”

Breanne’s eye glaze over, a very distant sorrow fills her face and tears begin to flow from her eyes.  She is choked with tears as she tried to speak.  She motions with her hand at the pile of dead Amarrian soldiers.

“Oh my child!  I’m so sorry,” Leainati begins to hug Breanne, “They died in the battle did they?”

A weak tearful voice creeps from Breanne’s mouth, “No, they died a long time ago.  I think they died; they just disappeared with some soldiers.  I am all alone, I have no family.”

Leainati unfolds Breanne from her embrace, places her hands on these tiny shoulders of the sobbing child, “My child, you are not alone.  You are part of our family now.”

“But,” Breanne begins to speak, “You family is messed up.”

Ga’len roars with laughter again.  His face turns red and he hangs his head as he tried to catch his breath.  After several moments he begins to speak.

“Yes my acorn, our family is messed up,” Ga’len continues, “but we have what every family needs.  We look after each other; we stick together through the good times and the bad.”

“You do?’ Breanne asks, “You don’t just disappear one day without a word?”

“Not usually, no,” Leainati says, “Now, why don’t you stay here with Twig while I got get you some more food, okay?”  Breanne looks at Ga’len for a moment, then looks at Leainati and nods in agreement.

Leainati heads off and Ga’len begins to speak, “Breanne, would you like to help me for a moment?  I can’t quite reach high enough on this wall to put up this poster.”

“I am too small, you are taller,” Breanne says.

“That is true, alone we can’t reach, but together we can, “Ga’len places his hands on her shoulders, “If you sit on my shoulder, you can reach up higher than the both of us.”

Breanne moves behind Ga’len and with a jump and Ga’len’s guiding hands, she manages to sit on his right shoulder.  Together then manage to place a new poster on the wall.  When they are finished, they step back to look at what they have done.

“Looks good my acorn.  Forlorn has a talent that is to be sure, ” Ga’len says as he crouches beside Breanne, “Come, let’s go find our sister and see about your food.”

Breanne turns and faces Ga’len.  Without warning, she throws her arms around his neck and hugs him.

“Thank you Uncle Twig.  I like the poster,” Breanne says sleepily.

Ga’len laughs, returns the hug and stands up holding Breanne in his arms.  As he walks down the hallway towards the deck’s food court, he collects a blanket from a supply crate and wraps Breanne in it to keep her warm.  As they continue down the hall, Breanne lays her head on his shoulder and her eyes slowly close as she slips away into sleep.

Ga’len stops for a moment and turns his head to her sleeping face.  He places a gentle kiss upon her forehead and whispers softly, “Sleep well my little acorn.  You are not alone anymore; Uncle Twig and Aunt Leainati will take care of you now.  You are free”.

More of The Bleeding Rose

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If you are looking for a EVE specific blogging hosting community, you head to over to Podlogs (http://www.podlogs.com) with their extensive selection of EVE based WordPress themes and blogging tools.

If however, you are looking for more than a blog hosting solution,  a hosting resource for your in game organization to have forums, a killboard and voice communications, you have many choices.

LoneTrek Hosting is one of those many quality providers that services the EVE Online gaming community.  With continued success as a service provider,t hey are engaging in some changes to enhance their service offerings and expand their business operations.

Below is a copy of the announcement that is being sent to their customers outlining those changes.  I have to say, this looks interesting.

Dear <client>,

I started Lonetrek four months ago with the goal to provide fast, powerful  web and voice hosting solutions to the players of EVE Online at an affordable price. I am happy to say that I believe that I have succeeded in this goal. We are providing some of the highest quality services to the EVE Community, at some of the most cost effective prices out there.

I sit here looking the future of Lonetrek and the possible courses that it can take. It can blossom into a true business, remain a on the side hobby, or flutter and Die. I want to take this into a new realm, develop this into a real business, and do everything in my power to keep it from dying. This announcement is the first step towards that goal.

Currently we offer 8 web hosting packages and 16 voice hosting packages some available for ISK and some for USD. Originally the idea for offering USD packages was to help pay the RL costs of hosting the ISK packages, and up until recently it has done its job. But in order to step further towards that goal some changes are about to be made, changes that I feel are necessary. We are completely rewriting our  web and voice hosting packages and the associated features. We are also rewriting the role that ISK plays in our billing model.  But more on that later…

Announcing Lonetrekhosting.com

We are moving URLs, the old lonetrek.ws URL will continue to be valid for the month of February, after which it will just redirect visitors to lonetrekhosting.com. You might be wondering why we are changing URLs. It’s a long story, but the TL’DR version is that the old URL was created with our old name in mind(Lonetrek Web Services) hence the .ws, it just seemed to fit. But recently we have had problems with payment gateways not trusting our site because of that .ws domain url. So we are taking this new initiative as an opportunity to move to a new common domain url. So effective Febuary 1st our new URL, www.lonetrekhosting.com will be activated as our new domain.

Service Changes

We are completely rewriting our hosting packages and services. Our current web hosting packages are being split, and expanded. Our basic shared hosting packages are being converted into what we are calling “Grid Hosting” packages, and our semi-dedicated packages are being converted into what we are calling “Node Hosting”.  We will also be expanding in the coming months to provide fully dedicated servers, as well as offering the Plesk control panel as an alternative to cPanel. As part of the re-vamping the following features will included with ALL packages:

• Unlimited Bandwidth
• Unlimited Emails
• Unlimited MySQL
• Unlimited Websites(add-on domains)

If you want to get a sneak peak at our new packages you can visit the new website located at http://www.lonetrekhosting.com(note: the packages will not be available until on/around Feb 1st)

ISK Service Changes

We are also completely changing how ISK is used around here. Currently we offer 4 ISK Web Hosting packages, and 8 ISK Voice Packages. This is about to dramatically change, for the better. We will continue to offer our ISK Web Hosting packages, with a few changes to the packages. The big change is in the voice department. As you may be aware, the cost of running voice operations is quite high, the bandwidth and CPU needed is expensive. So it is a very large burden to offer these packages for ISK only. Which is why a change is needed, and happening.  We will continue to offer 5 slot “Trial” voice hosting for the low cost of 10 Million ISK per month.  10 Slots and over will require a 1 time “setup fee” of 4.99$ to help go towards the cost of providing an ISK service. I realize that to most this is a deal breaker, but we also have a work around. IF you have a real currency Web Hosting account through us we will waive the 5$ Fee, effectively making your voice server ISK only.  This of course means that our ISK voice prices will be changing to reflect the new 5$ fee. Meaning even lower Voice for ISK prices.

So you must be wondering if you already have ISK voice account “what will happen to us”. Well, we don’t believe in changing the deal after the order has been made, so your account will remain active until your next due date(if you pay monthly, march 1st). After that point if you want to continue hosting voice for ISK you will be required to pony up the 4.99 or purchase a web package of ours.

The new URL for our EVE/ISK Services will be http://eve.lonetrekhosting.com(not currently active yet)

Introducing the “ISK Discount”

When we originally launched we had an ISK discount, but it got lost in time. But we are bringing it back, and it should be a popular thing, here is why. For a yearly ISK Fee you can reduce your real currency bill by 25, 50 or even 75%! Below are the available “Discounts” and the associated ISK cost to you:

• Basic Discount:  50 Million ISK per year – Get 25% off
• Extended Discount: 100 Million ISK per year – Get 50% off
• Ludicrous Discount: 200 Million ISK per year – Get 75% off

How the process will work is you will sign up for the ISK discount, pay your ISK and then you will be given a special code that gets you the % off your bill. I should clarify, this is not a onetime discount, this is a discount on most real currency Lonetrek service you order for the duration of the year in which you paid.

For example, If I paid the 200 Million for the Ludicrous discount, I could get the Grid Power package(Unlimited Everything) for a mere 2.50$  a month, or a 10 slot Ventrilo server for the ridiculous price of .88cents a month!

We are very excited about this discount, and we hope that you choose to take advantage of it. It should also be noted that the discount will only work on the new packages/plans, so if you wanted to take advantage of it, you would be required to upgrade your service to one of the new plans.

Welcome Installatron

As most of you already know we currently offer Fantastico Deluxe as our Auto Installer of choice. This is about to change. Fantastico is a great package, but it is not updated as quickly as one would like. Which can lead to security issues. So we have decided to start using Installatron as our new Auto Installer, Installatron offers the same great software packages, even some new ones, but the key is that they are updated more often and the UI is much prettier(in our opinion). We will continue to provide Fantastico on our servers, but we will recommend using Installatron when installing software into your web space.

Server Changes

You received an email earlier this week about server changes. Well now let me explain how cool this upgrade really is. Not only have we upgraded servers, but we have implemented a redundant DNS system. We now have DNS servers in Seattle, WA(NS1) and Washington DC(NS2) and will soon be expanding to have DNS in Dallas, TX(NS3) and Chicago, IL(NS4). This means that your should one of our DNS servers fail, or is unreachable you will have 4 separate locations in different parts of the US to provide visitors access to your site.

Previously all DNS was located on the same server that your site is hosted on, which works, but doesn’t help you if something goes wrong.  This new DNS system will also allow us to transfer accounts between servers without needing to update your nameservers, meaning no 24-48 hour wait, changes will be almost instant. Meaning upgrades can and will go a lot smoother when it requires a server relocation.

We are also going to be running two servers. The new server “New Eden” is taking all operations while we revamp and upgrade “Genesis” and redeploy it as one of our node hosting servers.

Conclusion

I know these are a lot of changes, but I feel this is the best course of action that will insure the future success of Lonetrek and our ability to serve you. This email is already getting rather long, so I won’t say much other than that we would really like your feedback on these changes. If you would like to share your thoughts on these changes please send an email to feedback@lonetrekhosting.com. I can’t wait to hear from you

Sincerely,

Anthony Thurston

CEO

Lonetrek Hosting

www.lonetrekhosting.com/www.lonetrek.ws

So, there you have it.  Head over to LoneTrek Hosting and sign up today!

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Here are some things to highlight from the past week:

• It’s been an interesting week.  Many of you saw me snap and rant for a bit.  I’m not going to recount those forum postings and articles on my blog here, it’s time to move past that stuff.  I will say this though.  The EVE forums continue to see post after post of complaints, however, CCP is returning in kind with announcements of specialized test server sessions.  I’ll keep my comments in the future on a more positive note and less “ranty”.  If anything, CCP does inspire people with passion however there are times when that passion is not expressed in the best of ways.  For that, I am sorry.  This of course, leads us to the next bullet which addresses some of the ‘passion’ that myself and many others have expressed.
• CCP released Dominion 1.1.1, patch notes are available.  This line in the patch notes gives me hope:  Many behind the scenes optimizations and fixes have been implemented. Granted, this was announced before the test server testing on Wednesday the 27th, but it is obvious that they learned something.  The fight in D-GTMI hit 1600+ in local with well over 1000 on grid and the node held strong.  There was lag, but it was epically better than things have been, module response times varied from 30 seconds to 15+ minutes all throughout the battle.  Some times it was worse, other times it was better.  It was a bit random on who was being affected.  The lag problem is not fixed per se, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was a week ago.  One thing that you have to note, the node NEVER crashed and that is a huge accomplishment.  We need to monitor this to see if similar fleet engagements obtain the same results, but I am feeling better about the work CCP is doing to work on this issue.  Yes, I will say it took too long since the deployment of Dominion, but they made a huge step forward.  My hats off to them on this one!
• Huge bullet point and this is why as it leads to this item. -A- and it’s allies continue their push into Provibloc territory.  First by reclaiming space they took from -A- during an attack near HED-GP and then they continued into Providence itself.  D-GTMI fell to -A- as a direct result of those efforts.  CVA and their pets put up a decent fight.  As I write this, -A- is deploying the tools for maintaining sov.  The system D-GTMI now belongs to -A-.
• Speaking of sov changes in systems, Goonswarm lost it’s sov in many systems due to it’s alliance bills not being paid.  Several other alliance lost their sov in the same fashion.  Seems that automatic payments for alliance bills have some issues, however, other alliance had these issues sorted out before their bills became due.  Many people are happy to see the goons fall as only the EVE Forums can relate.  A recording of a goonswarm meeting after sov was lost was recorded and placed on the EVE forums as well.  You can listen to it yourself.
• Helicity Boson was featured in one of the EVE Community Spotlight articles on MMORPG.COM for his work in organizing the Hulkageddon contests.
• Casiella Truza hosted an interesting discussion on writing fan fiction for EVE online.  If you like to write fan fiction head over and take a gander and join in the discussion!
• Speaking of Fan Fiction, Janette Davy has been working on an interesting story, head over and catch up on all the posts!
• On a non-EVE related note, Apple announced the iPad.  I am intrigued, but a lack of a camera, usb port and sd card slot are some things that I would have liked to see.  The announced accessories like the case that triples as a stand for watching movies or an inclined stand for ease of use of the onscreen keyboard for longer typing sessions are a plus.  The keyboard dock is also a nice addition.   Having an unlimited 3G data plan that is month to month, no contract at $29.99 is a major plus.  I’ll wait for the reviews after the 3G units hit the market here in the US in April.
• And of course, we continue to add blogs to The EVE Online Portal and the OPML download.  Even with the cleanup last week, we have made it up to 516 working blogs in the OPML!

See you out there!

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It’s a good question.  CCP has created a in depth universe, one filled with history and culture.  With so much already laid out before you, how would you write fiction for that world?

For me, it takes the same kind of work if you are going to attempt to write in a particular genre.  You need to first, read.  If you are going to write stories in the Superhero genre, you first should read what others have written.  It helps you to build a background of what people are reading and writing.  It also helps you to avoid the pitfall of writing the same story that has been written time and time again.  In order to write well, you need to be able to read well first.

The same thing goes for EVE Online or any other fan fiction that you want to write.  You need to do some research first.  There are the Chronicles, the many pieces of fiction in the EVE Fiction section on the forums as well as a great section for EVE Fiction on the EVElopedia.  Some corporations and/or alliances have their own player fiction sections on their respective forums.  These resources are invaluable for the potential EVE Fiction writer.

So, what do you do if you start writing before you do the research?  What happens if you seems to “violate” the prime fiction?  What if the prime fiction changes?

Well, you stop and take a look at what happened.  Can you keep going with your story?  Can you slightly change the focus on an item to work past it?  What about a re-write?

Editing work that you have already created is not a sin, it’s the sign of a good writer.  A good writer looks at the mistakes they make and learns from the experience.  So what if you have to rewrite something to make it fit.  Improving a story that you have already written is a service to your readers.

If you don’t think that is the case, then I would direct your attention to the various movies that have been “re-mastered” or had a later release of a “Director’s Cut” edition.  Some of these “re-released” films add elements to the stories that fill in the gaps from a previously released version.

If you are writing single short stories that are not going to continue with additional episodes, you would be okay.  It’s a small bump in the road.  If you are like me, where you have a loosely continuing storyline with a set of regular characters, it can make things a bit dicey.

Take The Bleeding Rose stories that I have been writing.  Originally they were fiction inspired on PvP engagements I had when I was a pirate.  Over time, I found that the stories were becoming repetitive and honestly, they were becoming boring.  It was time to take a step away from dramatized combat reports and to create something new.  I changed the focus of my stories from combat experiences to interactions with people.

I took some prime fiction and used it as a base.  I picked things like the planet Oris in the Amarr system to be the place of birth for Ga’len.  I didn’t make him a direct heir to the emperor or anything, I made him a son of a land owner. I picked things that you know are very unlikely to change.  Shuttles, stations, travle through stargates, etc…

Doing things like that will help you.  You have to learn to create those “specifically vague” details so that your story can flow when things do change.  Once you have that ground work completed, start writing.

If you want to include things like real in game characters in your stories, ask those people before you use them in your story.  This can help to ensure that what you write is true to form.  Inviting real in game characters into your story can also lead to those people providing useful feedback on your writing project, thus helping the creative process along.

One thing that will help you with your stories as far as EVE Online is that our game is not restricted to what CCP provides for us.  Most of the in game history is created by the day to day events in game.  Such an open ended experience allows you a lot of room for your stories.  You can always write about some people taking a transport ship on one of those NPC hauler convoys that travel between stations in empire.  You can write a story about some maintenance technician who works on a stargate and how he hates those bubbles from Heavy Interdictors camping the gate in nullsec as they obscure the view of a nearby moon.  The possibilities may not seem endless with a world that has already been created but the “reality” is that most of the stories in EVE Online have yet to be written.

Be creative, test the waters and create!

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So, CCP, what has happened to your quality of your game? This is what we are to expect from the “Game of the Year for 2009″?  Spending over 1 hour to log back into a node and not be able to do anything?

It’s a valid question given the continual crashes of nodes in nullsec, the forums and of course, Tranquility itself.

Ever since Dominion went live, EVE Online has had serious failures with continual node crashes and excessive lag.  The server stability has been akin to a house of cards.  Simply look at it hard and it all falls down.

Now, since Dominon patch 1.1 has gone live, these problems have increased an order of magnitude.  EVE Online used to be a quality game.  What happened?

That’s the question I am putting to the community and more importantly, CCP.  Telling us that you are having a database issue is not the answer that the community needs to hear.  Your stakeholders need to hear the details.  You do remember them right?  Everyone who plays EVE Online is a stakeholder.  You keep reminding us of that fact at each FanFest.

So, as one of your stakeholders, I am asking you CCP, what has happened at CCP that has reduced the level of quality to this abysmal level?

You are walking down the path of SOE.  You are making the same mistakes that were made with Star Wars Galaxies or at least, that is what we are seeing since you refuse to communicate in a meaningful and valid way with your player base.

Stop ignoring us, your stakeholders.  Tell us what is going on.  Tell us the details of what is broken.  We have a collective technical capiblity in our award winning community to create great solutions to problems.  Look at all the third party applications out there.  We have created some truly wonderful things that work well.  We can help, let us for crying out loud.

I am seriously rethinking my investment choices for 2010, both time and money.  Unless we start seeing some valid communication from CCP with the details of why their flagship product has fallen into this sorry state of affairs and some genuine resolution to the problems that have effectively left 0.0 game play as playable as a rock stuck in your shoe, I urge anyone considering EVE online to pay attention and really consider your choices carefully.

Am I being a bit harsh?  Perhaps I am.  The game I love to play, that I spend time writing about and spend time supporting it’s community has become shit-sauce in a failure bottle and that honestly is a disappointment of epic proportions.

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• Helicity Boson wrote a very long, interesting article concerning Carebears and why he hates them.  It’s a good read as well as the community response.  Yes, if you are sensing a Google shared item for the blog posts, your right.  Read the entire collection!
• Spectre over at EVE Newb has decided to take a break from EVE Online or perhaps it’s another one of his scams.  Anyway, it’s an entertaining read as are all the responses posted in the EVE Blogging Community.
• After many month, we finally have the FanFest background projection videos that were looped on the screen behind the main stage.  Enjoy!
• Dominion patch 1.1 went live on Thursday, read the patch notes if you are curious as to what changed.  There was a CCP Dev blog posted, the first one in a long time as well concerning the Dominion 1.1 patch changes. Items to note from these two articles:  Motherships are now Supercarriers, Drones can now be used to attack Zephyrs in wormhole space and most importantly,  CCP Tuxford can no longer shut down TQ on a whim.
• Still no word on when they are going to fix the game breaking lag in 0.0 space or the server stability issues.  In fact, the stability issues have gotten worse since this most recent patch.  Around 9:30 pm est, TQ went down along with the EVE forums.  Random lag storms have been hitting systems with local counts as low as 5.  CCP seems to be having a lot of quality issues lately.

In addition to continuing to play catch up at work from being out sick.  I made time to work on on the OPML download file this week.  From time to time I go through and make sure that I have all the correct urls and that all the sites listed are still alive.  For the latest additions to the OPML download, head over to The EVE Online Portal.  As of right now, we have 503 blogs listed in the OPML file.  Yes, that’s a lot of blogs.

Below is the list of sites that were removed.  I removed them as they were either dead sites, had no content or access to the site was denied for some reason, either from a server 403 error being presented or a site blocked page from blogspot.  If your site is listed below in error, please either comment on this blog post or email me to have this corrected.

• www.autopilotdisabled.com – No content
• www.hacksplat.com -  No Content
• sulla-monster.blogspot.com -  No content
• caldarinavyibis.blogspot.com – Access denied to the site
• www.warpscrambled.com/blogs/suddenlyninja – Access denied to the site
• www.waypointreached.com – No content
• triffonsbio.blogspot.com – No content
• phoenixcorps.blogspot.com – No content
• newedendiaries.com – Site is dead
• podlogs.com/tetsuotakashi – No content
• eve.phasma.bplaced.ne – Site is dead
• protosolus.co.uk – No content
• the-life-of-orias.blogspot.com – Site is dead
• khezual.blogspot.com – Access denied to the site
• www.systemkaos.com – Site is dead
• podlogs.com/neuralboost – Site is dead
• evepilot.eve-gamers.co.uk – Site is dead

See you out there!

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…NODE CRASH…

…clear cache on local client…

….2 hours later….

…and point to them as the cause of the current biggest problem to impact game play, lag.

Since Dominion was released, the lag in 0.0 has become severe enough to simply prohibit playing the game.  There are times that simply trying to…

…NODE CRASH…

…clear cache on local client…

….3 hours later….

…log into a system with only 40 people in local can take over 30 minutes.

Have a major fleet fight?  Forget being able to play.  Even with requesting additional hardware resources using the fleet fight requester, as was done with the recent engagements in 49-, server stability was a complete joke.  1300 on grid, node crash.  15 hours later, 1200 on grid, node crash.

I know that lag is a very complex problem that requires many solutions…

…NODE CRASH…

…clear cache on local client…

….2 hours later….

…to be implemented at the same time, but CCP is failing miserably at it right now.  Since Dominion, EVE has simply not been truly enjoyable.  I sometimes…

…NODE CRASH…

…clear cache on local client…

….2 hours later….

Sorry about that, the node just went down.  As I was…

…NODE CRASH…

…clear cache on local client…

…45 minutes later…

Again I am very…

…NODE CRASH…

…clear cache on local client…

…3 hours later…

Sense a pattern here?  Frustrating, isn’t it?

Makes you wonder why you continue to play Star Wars Galaxies.  OOPS, sorry about that Freudian slip there.  Well, it’s not hard you know.  Lack of stability of the gaming environment, not listening to your community about the issues encountered on the test server and then roll that defective code into production.  Am I the only one who sees the parallels here?

I hate to say it, but I have to agree with consensus that many are voicing.  Rollback the Dominion expansion.  It’s not stable and thus it can not be effectively played.

Am I being a bit harsh here?  I must admit that I am and rightly so.  I feel as many dedicated veteran players feel.  CCP has failed to improve the gaming experience with it’s latest expansion’s main objective, to improve the sovereignty mechanics.  CCP has in fact, reduced the quality of game play.

So, am I being harsh?  Look at it this way.  With CCP delving into the Short Attention Span Instant Gratification market, A.K.A. First Person Shooters on consoles, what would the reaction be to a node crash?

FPS Gamer: ‘WHAT?!?!  THE SEVRER IS DOWN?!?!?  THIS GAME SUCKS!?!

***dials phone***

Customer Support:  Hello, this is CCP customer support, how may I help you?

FPS Gamer:’THE SERVER IS DOWN!  WHY CAN’T I PLAY?

Customer Support:  I’m sorry, the logs don’t show anything wrong….click

***dials phone***

FPS Gamer: YOU HUNG UP ON ME FOR NO REASON!!  THE SERVER IS DOWN!  WHY CAN’T I PLAY?

Customer Support:  We are sorry sir, the node crashed regardless of being reinforced as was requested by the combatants.  You could try logging in again once population in the system has been reduced to manageable levels.

FPS Gamer:  YOUR GAME SUCKS, I WANT MY MONEY BACK!

Customer Support:  Sir, I am sorry that you are encountering difficulties.  Please clear your cache and

FPS Games:  click

My point?

To remind CCP that they are making the same mistakes that other companies in the MMORPG market made that led to their downfall.

CCP, you need to wake up.  Stop ignoring your stakeholders, your customers and your investors.

You need to fix your product and fix it now.

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Anyway, since I was very busy with the holidays and having been sick, It’s been a while since I’ve done my Friday post.  There was a lot of cool stuff that wanted to share!

• EVE Online broke is Peak Concurrent User (PCU) record! The new record stands at 56, 021!
• Winterblink reported the lovely news that EVE Online was named the Game of the Year by MMORPG.com.
• Ten Ton Hammer named the EVE Online Gaming Community the Best Community for 2009.
• Blog Banter 14 went live, lots to read.  Catch up with the posts.
• Morning Maniac has stepped down as CEO of EVE Univertisy.
• Alexia Morgan’s O.U.C.H. project is coming along quite nicely.  A few of his new corp mates have been blogging about their experiences.  You can catch all the news on this nice little Google Feed.
• Luminus Aardokay and Quivering Palm over at The Planet Risk Show have been posting some good articles for those who are new to the EVE Universe.  They are worth a read for all us vets too.  Always, always read the guides people write.  You never know what new things you can learn from them.
• Hulkageddon II went into full swing and was a great success!  Helicity Boson did a great job this year.  Over 275 billion isk in hulks and related kills occurred this time around.   You can read all about the kills, smacktalk and even some videos at his second blog, aptly named Hulkageddon!

See you out there!

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The first banter of 2010 comes to us from the EVE Blog Father, in which I ask the following: As we begin another year in New Eden, ask yourselves “What Now?” What will I attempt next? What haven’t I done so far in EVE? Was it out fear, funds, or knowledge? Have I always wanted to start my own corporation, but have never dared doing so? Is there a fledging mercenary waiting to come out of its shell? Or maybe an Industrialist? What steps and objectives will I set myself to accomplish in order to reach my ultimate goal for this year? EVE is what you make of it. So, what is it going to be for you?

Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth.

V in V for Vendatta

Words.  What are words?  Words are the collection of letters to create a coherent form within a language.  Those forms are usually collected together to form a sentence and sentences are used to convey a thought or concept from the writer to the reader.

Words are very powerful.  Once you have said or written a word that is shared with another person, that power transfers from the creator to the listener.  Words are indeed a very powerful tool and as human beings, we have the power to change our individual worlds with the simple use of words and language.  We have the power to convey thoughts, emotions, concepts and ultimately truth through the use of words.

In EVE online, many words have different meanings for people.  In years past, the words, “Vagabond on the gate”, would have filled me with fear and the truth that I was about to loose my Ishkur.  Now that I can fly a Vagabond with proper fittings, I know that other people are saying the words, “Vagabond on the gate”, and I am not filled with fear but with confidence.

“Nullsec” was a word that used to convey an image of utter danger from whence no one can escape”, now it means “home” to me.

So, what will I attempt in 2010?

I will continue to see the meaning of words.

I will continue to write about EVE Online.

I will look forward to the day when the word “Dominion” does not mean “nullsec lag storms from 2005″ or “Gabe should stop playing with hamsters and fix the frakking game breaking lag”.

I will see words like “Motherships are finally fixed” and “Incarna is now live!” and be filled with joy.

I will see words continue to be written by my fellow bloggers.  I will see fantastic fiction and wonderful opinion and  perspectives on game play flow forth on every page for everyone to enjoy.  I will see truth behind words people say and write and understand it’s meaning.

See you out there!

For more of the written word about EVE that is truly worthy of reading from Blog Banter 14, see the many other posts listed below:

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux’s Musing - A beginning is a very delicate time…
2. My God It’s Full of Stars - What Now?
3. The Elitist - Plans for 112yc
4. Into the unknown with gun and camera - Show me the money
5. Ecliptic Rift - Enabling the future
6. Inanity and Doom - New Year’s Resolutions, New Eden Style
7. Break Vol - Blog Banter #14
8. Guns Ablaze - What Now?
9. Adventures in Mission Running - The Way Forward
10. Diary of a Pod Pilot - Things I want to do
11. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - The Year That Will Be
12. Roc’s Ramblings - WordPress ate my blog
13. Vive Virtual - Frontier Living
14. A Mule in EVE - Next on the chopping block
15. Prano’s Journey - I Peer Into My Crystal Pod…
16. Life in Low Sec - Expanding the Franchise
17. The Light of Stars - Testing the claims of CCP
18. A Memoir From Space - A New Direction
19. The Chronofile - Blog Banter 2010
20. FlashFresh - What now for Flash?
21. EVE Opportunist - Fyreite in 112
22. Mike Azariah - Jiorj
23. Yarrbear Tales - Year in Review
24. The Independant Analyst - The Year Ahead
25. The Travels of Black Claw - Where ma I going?
26. Warp Scrammed - What to do this year
27. Sered’s Lives - Searching for directions in 2010
28. Finders & Keepers - New Tears, Same Great Taste
29. The Captain’s Log - To Dream of the Future
30. The Lathspell of Mithrandir - Resolutions
31. The Midnight Sun - EVE Blog Banter #14
32. More to come!

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I’ve not written much or played EVE since before Christmas.  I’ve been busy with the holidays and after falling prey to the flu, bronchitis set up shop in my lungs.

I’ve not really had the energy to do much and the few days at work made me sicker, so, I am taking a break for a while to get myself healthy again.

I will continue to update the OPML download as I can, so please be patient with me.

Hopefully soon, see you out there!!

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