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.
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!
Alexia Morgan has moved forward with his O.U.C.H. project, an in game corporation that will teach you how to live in the infamous nullsec regions of EVE. If you have been looking to head into 0.0, this may be a useful resource for you!
EVE Radio had their Christmas Comes Early contest this week. It’s not too late to enter and enjoy the fun as there are activities planned through the weekend!
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.
Dominoin 1.0.2 was deployed, Patch Notes reveal that the Stargate Blockade Units were seeded as planned. The grace period for Sov was extended to December 15th.
CCP promised us the screen saver that they used as the backdrop at FanFest. It’s not been released yet, but a very nice screensaver with Dominoin screenshots and music has been release, check it out!
Rettic wrote a wonderful back story for his character, READ IT!
And to round out the list this week, check out yet another awesome kill by a Warrior of the Ushra’khan. Yes, it’s a T3 Strategic Cruiser popped something almost unheard of.
See you out there and remember to finish your Christmas Shopping!
We come to it again, Patch Day. This is the time where everyone in EVE Online spends an entire day sitting with clenched teeth and butterflies in their bellies.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS BLOG POST AT THE VERY MOMENT THAT IT WENT LIVE ON MY BLOG, GO SET A LONG SKILL THAT WILL TAKE MORE THAN 2 DAYS TO TRAIN NOW!!!!!
I always seems to come across a post on the EVE forums that someone complaining either before or after Patch Day that they forget to set a long skill or did not set a long skill to cover the extension to the Patch Day outage. We have also seen in the past that Patch Day will start early and we have see Patch Day be extended longer than planed, SO FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED, GO SET THAT LONG SKILL RIGHT NOW!!
Ahem, sorry about that, it had to be said…..AGAIN!
While we are all waiting for the Dominion Expansion to be deployed and for our updated game clients to download and install, you have some free time. Go outside, breath the fresh air, clean the kitchen sink, do some laundry and when you come back, go do something else as watch Patch Day is like watching the kettle on the stove boil water. It will take longer than you think it will.
While you are waiting, here are some things to keep you occupied:
The latest patch for EVE comes out Thursday with an early start for downtime at 5 am GMT and is planned to end at the normal end of downtime at 12:00 GMT. For all the details, read the patch notes:
The agility and the scan resolution of some ship classes has been adjusted to allow them to have a better chance of locking ships of their own size before they got to warp. Full details are available here.This means that a cruiser will have a better chance of locking and warp scrambling another cruiser, this was something that was broker when Aprocphya was initially deployed.
If a ship cloaks, all active modules that modify attributes, such as ECM, will stop immediately and the icons showing the effect will disappear.No more using the Cloak/Align exploit, finally.
Cloaking a Falcon while there is a jamming cycle in progress and the jammer has been deactivated will now result in an immediate break of the jam cycle on the targeted ship. To clarify: if you start a 20 second jamming cycle on a ship, then deactivate the jamming module and cloak, the jam cycle on the target will immediately cease.No more using the uncloak – jam – cloak exploit, finally.
Corporation directors will no longer be spammed multiple times for the same starbase event. They will receive one mail only.But I love receiving automated in game email spam, makes my mailbox look like Jita local ** smirk **.
Grouped laser turrets will now allow a single crystal to be changed out once it has become completely damaged. For example, if you have aa Apocalypse with grouped pulse lasers using Tech II Scorch crystals, with varying degrees of damage you can reload used crystals without breaking the weapon group.This issue annoyed me to no end, thank you CCP for fixing this one!!!
So, there you have some of the items in the patch. Do follow the link at the top of this post to the full patch notes and remember to set a long skill training or put skills into your training queue!!
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