EVEbloggers.com | The Wandering Druid of Tranquility

WHAT?!?! We are losing an hour?!?!?

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That’s right folks.  For people in the USA, the Daylight Savings time changes is on Sunday, March 14 at 2 am.  Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead 1 hour.

Here’s your weekly highlights for this week.

See you out there!

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Weekly Highlights March 12th 2010

Has it been this long?

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This Weekly Highlights posts is a bit different than my last ones because I have something to celebrate.  I’ve been playing EVE Online as Ga’len for four years now.

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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Weekly Highlights March 5th 2010

“And the award for most popular blog goes to…”

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Crazy Kinux has finally become active after a long absence for the better part of a year and announced that he has decided to revamp the his Blog Pack. He announced that he was seeking submissions on who should be added to his blog pack and he would hold a vote.  He would then select the top 20 from that voting process and add his own blog to the mix for a total of 21 blogs.

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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New OPML file from Mandrill

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Mandrill over at I am Keith Neilson has created a new animal.

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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OPML Download updates, Site Updates February 20th 2010

It’s been busy

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This coming weekend and the next and then we are at Christmas.  Can you believe it?  It’s been a busy month and a lot is going on.

See you out there and remember to finish your Christmas Shopping!

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Weekly Highlights December 11th 2009