OPML Download | 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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CK's Blog Pack, Discussion Point, EVE Player Blogs February 23rd 2010

“Let me ’splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up…” – Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride (1987)

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Every time I write these Friday posts, they always seem to be a bit awkward to me. Well, the posting is not awkward, I just don’t want to leave the intro to the post something that is bland, the same thing each week. Bland posts every week lead to boredom for the reader and the writer.

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 28th, 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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Weekly Highlights February 5th 2010

Yup, it’s the Friday post

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Yup, weekly highlights again.

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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Weekly Highlights January 29th 2010
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