EVE - reactivation after 4 years

[Dyntheos]

So basically I left when BoB was big and I was in Evol. What's changed? Who here still plays and is the game growing or in decline?

Hoping to see some old faces online..

[Mokino]

The game was in a sharp decline a few months ago due to CCP creating a horribly overpriced cash shop for cosmetic items and a leaked memo revealing that they'd planned on letting players buy new ships/gear through it eventually. Not sure if it's recovered.

It caused quite a turmoil in the community. Both BoB and Goonswarm have broken up into smaller groups and dominance of 0.0 is in flux more often now. I haven't actually played in about a year due to the collapse of my corp, mind you. I'm going by feedback from friends.

[Jonny]

BoB died a while ago, Goons have reformed and are carrying on as normal, the NC is pretty much screwed and Russians are taking over nullsec. CCP is buggering about with nullsec though so alot of it's denizens are invading high sec, whether that carries on or not is down to what their big nullsec revamp in the autumn turns out like. As far as I've noticed the big cash shop controversy was a massive storm in a teacup, with a lot of crying on the forums and people rioting in Jita for a week or two, now it's pretty much forgotten about and things are back to normal.

Incarna was the most useless expansion ever, it's just made loading the station interface a bit slower and given us pretty animated turrets. Agents have been reworked to eliminate agent quality and coalesce all the different divisions into 3. If you're into nullsec shenanigans then this autumn may be an interesting time to return, not only with the promised nullsec revamp but also they've signed a deal to distribute Eve in Japan. Given the dominance of the Russians out there, there's a good chance an influx of Japanese players into Eve may create another huge national power bloc fighting for it's piece of nullsec.

None of which affects me atm though, I'm just carebearing around Empire space. Eve's numbers are veering between slowly growing and holding steady as far as I know. The main cause of concern isn't the Cash shop scandal, but that the last three expansions have all been shit and not added anything enjoyable to the main game. Planetary Interaction is pretty dull even for industrialists and not very profitable, Incursions are just an ISK tap for carebear fleets and Captain's Quarters are just useless.

[Dyntheos]

I have scanned over the skill list and there seems to be some missing, namely the ones that increased the rate in which you gained skill points over time. What happened to them? I remember pumping nearly all of them to level 5, now they seem gone?

[Jonny]

They've taken all the learning skills out and (afaik) increased stats instead, so you train at the speed you would have with lvl 5 learning skills. The skillpoints you had in those skills will have been refunded, so you'll have a pool of SP to put immediately wherever you like.

[rowan sjet]

That was the best christmas present ever.

[Bowkers]

Evol is now in an alliance called The Initiative. I only know because I was 'accepted' into Evol around February this year, then my Masters hit me and I've stopped playing/log on to skill. Still have irc details if you need them though.

P.S BoB turned into IT-did ok for a while/had delve+fountain-then goonswarm and an alliance called test moved in. At the moment, the Russian/supercapitals dominate things. But the next big patch will apparently nerf these. I'm flying, when I can, a tempest atm and am loving it

P.P.S I think frst resubbed not too long ago-so that's one old face already

[MadCatChiken]

I haven't had my account activated for a few months now, don't really have the money for it, and I'm stuck with a -9.7 sec and I cba to rat/mission to raise it and my whole corp who used to pirate decided to get sec up and only stay in highsec.. =/ I got like 62mil SP now though.

[kais58]

I started playing a couple years ago and lived down in nullsec till PL and xxxDeath turned up, I think they're redoing social skills though not getting rid completely soon too. I am now looking for a new corp/alliance to join to get me back in as I have been lying low in highsec so I can head back out to nullsec or maybe just join up with some people I know for lowsec shenanigans.

[sajuukar]

P.S BoB turned into IT-did ok for a while/had delve+fountain-then goonswarm and an alliance called test moved in.

Hey that's the alliance that I'm currently in! I don't play very heavily, and TEST is okay with that while still being sufficiently staffed to hold 0.0 space, you see.

When I do play, it's usually to rat up a few scraps of ISK so that I can eventually join fleets to lose my ships for

[Cortlendt]

I've played like 3 or 4 years ago and I was in xxxDeath. I've left cause it takes too much time to do anything.

[Nurizeko]

So basically I left when BoB was big and I was in Evol. What's changed? Who here still plays and is the game growing or in decline?

Hoping to see some old faces online..

Ooooooooooooooooooooo... *sucks air*.

Well for a start BoB is dead. Killed in a most spectacular fashion.

[Carach]

i havent played in almost as long as u dyntheos.

wars between the empires has come out since u quit as well i think.

used to b called MAXSuicide. i get so many dodgey phishing emails about transfers, plex and other crap that i just dont open eve online emails anymore. so if u see me come online ingame; ive been hacked. report it! i will never be returning to the game. dont have the time or the money, and most of the people that made it fun to play have all quit too.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

I play on and off. Currently "off" but I'll probably sign up again for a bit at the end of the year.

[Bowkers]

Well for a start BoB is dead. Killed in a most spectacular fashion.

There's always BoB 3.0

@sajuukar TEST are awesome, I'm not a bitter vet/don't play enough/don't log in enough to be bitter. For an alliance to camp out a system 24/7 deserves some credit though. I've come across TEST in battle..twice, maybe three times, and they're just a juggernaut, in that local can go from a reasonable 150 battle to suddenly over 400. Then the spamming in local happens.

Nah, I don't hate TEST, it's all part of the game. It's looking likely though I'll end up coming back to the game, but I think I'll be more interested in doing small gang roams. I have a friend whose keen on getting us into a small corp that basically asks all its members to get to munins, a ship I've always been interested in flying since I loved my Rupture So we'll see.

[Dyntheos]

Ahh took my Damnation out for a spin today. What happened to the dr who warp graphic?

[Bonnet]

CCP replaced it with the suck.

I am currently inactive, but still in Pandemic Legion. The biggest changes to nullsec have been a new sov system and the woops overpowered supercaps. As of now most of the ex bob corps are in an alliance called Raiden. (its popular now to create "dot" alliances, eg Raiden.).
Currently there is one remaining super power, the DRF (Drone Region Federation) also generally known as the russians, primarily composed of White Noise, xxXDeathXxx, Solar Fleet, and Red Alliance. They control the eastern half of eve and are aligned with NC. (some of the old tri corps), Raiden., The Initiative, and have recently used (payed) PL to kill the old Northern Coalition.
Goonswarm and Test represent one of the other major powers (though not nearly at strength compared to the full DRF coalition). Goonswarm has Deklein, and Test Fountain. Test is a new group, mostly from reddit. The south has the other "major" power (currently the weakest of the three) which is represented by AAA, Red Overloard and a few other groups comprising the "Stain Coalitions".
Pandemic Legion comprises a "major power" on its own (on par with Test + Goons), but is dedicated to nomadic life and mercenary work. Delve is today owned by a bunch of small groups and has no major power in place. Same goes for providence.

Here is the latest influence map: http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/Verite/influence.png

The biggest gameplay changes over the last four years have been: Supercap Proliferation, Tech 3 Cruisers, Wormholes, Sov Changes and Incursions.

[Bowkers]

think I saw you in that PL vs TEST (?) bfbc2 match a few months ago-least I think it was you..there was a screenshot posted on kugu of participants.

P.S Init is definitley not affiliated to drf.

[Bowkers]

think I saw you in that PL vs TEST (?) bfbc2 match a few months ago-least I think it was you..there was a screenshot posted on kugu of participants.

P.S Init is definitley not affiliated to drf.

[Bonnet]

Yes it was me, I got 1st place in one of the five matches too :smug:.

Yeah sorry I was thinking of IRC, not init who is either unaffiliated or?

[Bowkers]

At the moment we're in Curse having fun against anybody and everybody, but we've 4 kb campaigns up atm ranging from RA (plus pets), NC., Darkside. and more recently against this group called Unthinkables. But I think we're on the move soon, but who knows where

Ah yes I did see you then

[Fenra]

I am unsubbed atm, can't justify the appeasement of 2 open Eve accounts since I can barely afford 1 xP

I would play if there was more incentive to play, that and I could figure out how to gain money faster than missioning, my Corp is in 0.0, but I have no clue wth to do out there, aside from kill rats which again, doesn't create much incentive to play more. I'd like to do PvP without heavy losses, but that's more or less impossible even in lowsec/0.0, since most people I hear lag to death more than pew pew. Again, very outdated info but idk what's out there tbh ^^

[Ra owa]

Fenra, you should give faction warfare a shot. I am in that currently, and it's good fun. Focus on finding a decent corp, though - maybe I could set you up. It is very easy to make money doing the faction warfare missions, also. The loyalty point payouts are crazy for what you actually have to do. Solo level-4's in a stealth bomber in a couple of minutes
The pvp is relatively small scale, also. I don't think I have encountered any lag since I started in faction warfare.
I left Pandemic Legion because I didn't have the time to play PL style properly anymore. Everything is a bit more chilled where I am now.

Remember to drop into the FCUK chat channel in-game. RN guys tend to hang out in there. Myself and others will be willing to help out anybody that needs tips etc, I am sure.

[sajuukar]

I'm not a bitter vet/don't play enough/don't log in enough to be bitter.

I feel that this is SO important if you really want to enjoy EVE as a game. There was a time when I played a lot more, and it just seems that the more you play the more you hate it, which is so ridiculous! On the other hand, the more you play, the more space buddies you can have.

I'm gonna lurk FCUK next time I log on.

[DeafMute]

Im currently playing. gametime runs out on the 13th but ill have enough isk to buy a plex.
Aiming for T2 sentries and T2 Heavies.
Will have both in around 30days.
Running a Dominix.
Can be fun when your playing support role. Otherwise its a looooong crawl to finish L4 missions.

[Carach]

despite not playing anymore im interested to know what happend to the NC. someone care to explain?

[Jonny]

I'm not a nullsec player, but what I've heard is that a year or so ago the NC was viewed as unbeatable, but during one of their border scraps one of their commanders invaded Russian space. The DRF turned out to have massive amounts of cash lying around and when they struck back against the NC they could afford to replace their supercap losses a lot faster by buying them than the NC could by making them. The Russian supercap blobs pretty much ground the NC into paste and the NC leadership was too ineffectual to keep the coalition together when it started to fail.

That's the basics as I understand it, pretty sure one of our nullsec brethren will have more details on it though.

[Bowkers]

Another rumour (basically I don't know if true or not) was that NC were selling supercaps, so the DRF or PL (again not sure if true or not) were buying them up. Then when they invaded, NC couldn't replace them fast enough. Also something about pets and shields that ended up being ineffectual. As well as pissing off the Goons about something, but VoV.

[Iamme]

A combination of what was said above. PL were considered friends/neutrals by the NC, who privately sold dozens of supercaps to them (as well as to the assorted Russians). When the DRF banded together (after the NC lol-invasion) they hired PL, who the NC were too "proud" to hire even after everything east of Tribute was consolidated under the Russians. By then it was probably too late, because amateur NC FCs had been throwing away entire fleets carelessly. Eventually any worthwhile pilots would better evacuate than join fleet, particularly supercapitals. The NC was hopelessly outnumbered, poorly led, and all too happy to burn whatever bridges they had left.

[Bonnet]

Another rumour (basically I don't know if true or not) was that NC were selling supercaps, so the DRF or PL (again not sure if true or not) were buying them up.

Wasn't really the problem actually. DRF + PL had (has) more than enough capacity to produce supercaps for themselves. The problem was that the NC didn't realize after the Atlas invasion (like everyone else did) that 200 supercaps on grid = battle won. This coupled with weak leadership and a culture where its acceptable to bring any old ship sitting in your hangar resulted in them being completely combat ineffective -> they lost the war. To top it off they never worked on keeping/growing there supercap fleets. Reimbursement for supercaps was abysmal, and people where essentially actively discouraged from using them. This means that very few people kept them, and those that did would never bring them on ops.

[Norsehound]

I've never played EVE, but its amusing to read the anecdotes of cyber-space politics and war caused by a massive player base. I'm sure it happens with other MMOs, but not described quite the way EVE is.

[DeafMute]

I wouldnt suggest playing it either Norse.
Eve is nothing more than a animated wallpaper. ^^

[Bowkers]

Playing it? Who said anything about playing..Poasting on forums about how little you log in is the way forward...

P.S Dyn's avatar scares me :/

[Merturk_NB]

I just stared a few months ago, and joined Dreddit. In game name is Linuturk if you want to gank me.

[pinkyclown]

Currently in Broski Enterprises, we where having fun shooting TEST after leaving but decided that we wanted SOV, so know where in the CLUSTERFUCK coalition as Elite Space Guild shooting with TEST again. Rifter fleets FTW

[Bowkers]

Ah really pinky, nice! Read quite alot of stuff on broski

[Carach]

the eve politics created by said playerbase is why eve is (or at least was, i have come to dislike alliance wars since about 2005 lol) a great game imo. almost all other mmo's is a series of ghey questing crap where the player makes no story whatsoever.

glad to see NC go down. their reputation as unbeatables was a long-lasting farce created by 'defeating' pvp alliances that had the attention span of a 5 year old ADHD patient.

[Bonnet]

No, not really. The NC that died was not the NC that PL helped kill bob, it was not the NC that fended off the russians the first time and it was not the NC which easily withstood ITs max 3. The NC died because it stagnated, primary PvP players and FCs, Alliances, and Corporations either left or died as well. The NC died because.. it wasn't the NC anymore. There are many reasons tactically, and strategically it lost but the coalition that died was a shadow of the great power it once was. Just as the Rome that the Visigoths sacked was a shadow of its formerself. The NC died in the way that almost all great powers in eve and real life die, stagnation and minor external pressures.

[Iamme]

I disagree. My impression is that they've always been the squishy meatbags and merely weathered previous challenges because of the half-assedness of their attackers.

[General Nuke Em]

So everybody was an equally squishy meatbag and only the mighty Russians and PL managed to overcome their squishy meatbagness to finally kill NC?

[Iamme]

Pretty close. :P As we've seen, ex-BOB (Raiden.) has the forces and organization to punch in their weight class, given decent organization. Max 2/3 were pathetic to watch (from the outside). Atlas was even killed immediately after the last.

[Sparki]

Another rumour (basically I don't know if true or not) was that NC were selling supercaps, so the DRF or PL (again not sure if true or not) were buying them up. Then when they invaded, NC couldn't replace them fast enough. Also something about pets and shields that ended up being ineffectual. As well as pissing off the Goons about something, but VoV.

There was also some (or a lot of) Real-Money-Trading on the DRF side. Afterwards, the grossly overpowered Supercap-Armada just steamrolled everything. The funny is thing is that Evoke/PL etc don't appear to be doing all too much capping of the former NC space. I don't know if it is still like that, but I think the main goal was to break NC after so many have failed to do so by conventional means.

They probably couldn't stand seeing NC and "bff" in local.

[Bonnet]

Raiden. has the forces and organization to punch in their weight class

Raiden. is no better than the IT that died in delve. I could give you a detailed argument to where the NC fell down over the course of the campaign etc. but Shadoo already made that post quite elegantly somewhere on the Kugu forums. If I recall correctly he stated (as I agree with) that the NC would have suffered total internal collapse within a year without external pressure. Just to give you some hint of my perspective, I am a director in Sniggerdly so while I would love to prop up PL as being the sole cause of the NCs death I also have a realistic view of what killed it.

The funny is thing is that Evoke/PL etc don't appear to be doing all too much capping of the former NC space

PL is not, and never will be again a space holding alliance. Holding fountain nearly killed us and we won't do it again. Evoke is much the same way.

[Bowkers]

PL is not, and never will be again a space holding alliance. Holding fountain nearly killed us and we won't do it again. Evoke is much the same way.

at least you discovered that before it was too late. Evol, not so sure about..

[Iamme]

Bonnet: I didn't disagree with either of those takes. I was pointing out that Raiden. were well applied as part of a mutually aggressive goal-driven coalition, and that the NC were (and had been) pretty poor when it comes to both tactics and strategy.
My impression of PL is that while they were doing considerable damage to the NC, they were one of many, and their individual contributions were more opportune than tactical.

PS: Is PL anyone doing anything interesting these days? My main is spinning sitting idly in a station.

[General Nuke Em]

PL is doing its best to get every member's security status to match its alliance ticker.

[Subarau]

It is amazing to see where it took me when I clicked an old link in my web browser.
To relic forums.
Are any of my old friends from free collective or black omega still playing the game.

dyntheos nice to see your name, pm me what you are doing since dec 09

[sajuukar]

This could be nothing, but I have seen some rather alarming images getting quite a bit of attention lately.



I wonder what it could mean :O

[Stonetom]

goons, test and pets are not part of DRF, so that outline is a bit off

edit
though it seems i may be a bit behind on news

[Jonny]

You know, when I look at the vast expanse of nullsec on a map I often wonder what's out there and get the urge to explore. Then I remember it's sewn up tight and I'll be damned if I'm taking orders from anyone to live out there, so I remain lone wolfing it in Empire.

I've heard one of the goals of the nullsec revamp will be to try and make it easier to roam nullsec solo or with a small corp. Smallholdings to operate from and the removal of local has been mentioned. That may be fun.