Stripping rocks of ore

I am still working for my Core Complexion, Inc. agent, still with the aim of raising my standings with that corporation. It has been so long since I started doing this I had better remind myself that it is for the purpose of Tech II production, where getting access to high quality level four Core Complexion, Inc. R&D agents will provide me with a good source of the datacores required for invention. Tech II production has been my overall aim, but working for the agents has given me lots of smaller goals out of necessity, as well as my own industrial efforts motivating me to expand my production output.

The agent gives me another mining mission to complete, luckily not ice this time but it is yet another mineral that only agents seem to have any need for. If it improves my standings to mine some useless rocks then I will persevere. I may have looked at mining missions unfavourably in the past, although I have hidden it well, but I have to admit I am a little bit excited about this one. My vigour doesn't come from the mission itself but rather as a side-effect of having to train for and buy a Retriever mining barge to mine ice on a previous mission.

Mining barges are not only for fitting CPU-intensive ice harvesters, they can also use strip miner modules. As their name suggests, strip miners are rather more efficient at ripping ore from asteroids than standard mining lasers, which is probably why they need to be fitted to a specially configured ship and definitely explains why I am a little eager to get on this mission. I get to pilot my new ship and play with new toys. I pull up the market interface and find a cheap pair of strip miners, along with a mining upgrade module. I hit vacuum with Fido, my Retriever, to pick up my new purchases before heading to the mission deadspace pocket to test out my new mining capabilities.

In deadspace I am happy to see that although there are a handful of rocks, which no doubt must all be mined to oblivion to complete my agent's demands for worthless rocks, they all look to be arranged in a volume where I can sit my ship to be within mining range of all of them, instead of having to reposition myself a few times. I also notice a few lurking drones, but the Retriever's bay is big enough to hold five light drones of my own, which when launched quickly reduce the hostile drones to minerals. With just me and the rocks left I lock-on and fire up my strip miners.

The strip miner modules have a longer cycle time than normal lasers, three minutes instead of one, which might make them sound rather more tedious to use, but the amount of ore mined per cycle is around twelve times as much as for a mining laser. Even though the White Cat, my Osprey, has three mining lasers of a high meta-quality Fido's two basic strip miner modules are pulling in a significant amount of extra ore over an equivalent amount of time. Each floating rock doesn't slowly dissolve in to the inky blackness of space as much as blink out of existence, and that's not referring to geological time either. The strip miners make short work of my mission, just as I had excitedly hoped.

I just can't work out if am I tingling because I am simply saving myself time when mining, and thus not having to do it for as long, or because I quite enjoy the much increased efficiency I am accomplishing in ripping apart the rocks. It is quite possible that I can tolerate, if not actually enjoy, mining ore if I can do it well. With Fido and its strip miners I might actually end up taking advantage of the next mission deadspace pocket I find full of veldspar, which could turn out to be more lucrative to harvest than receiving the early mission completion bonus.

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Tags: eve online, mining, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Burnout Paradise

Burnout 2 on the Gamecube has to be one of my favourite racing games, with its excellent mix of high-speed racing, superb car handling, and visceral and detailed crashes that augment instead of hinder gameplay. I am quite excited, therefore, to have a copy of Burnout Paradise bundled with my Xbox 360. I have been spending quite a bit of time burning my way around Paradise City, throttle fully open. But it isn't all about handbrake turns or barrel rolls off cliffs, unfortunately.

First, I haven't been playing the game intensively and I still could do with never hearing Guns n Roses' Paradise City song again. Of course I can see the connection, but it has become quickly tedious in its repetition every single time I load the game. Maybe I can change the order of the tracks, which I think I have tried to achieve, or load my own songs, but I think it would be better simply to have it start during the attract sequence, if it is really necessary, and then switch to a new and random order of songs as soon as the player enters the main game. This is a minor quibble, though.

The driving in Burnout Paradise is at least as fast and smooth as in the previous game. The cars hurtle along with a superb sense of speed, yet remain responsive to user inputs and wonderfully able to hold the road. I really feel like I am in control of the car and can make it do what I want with a bit of skilful manipulation, which is exactly what I am after in a racing game. The last problem I want is trying to fight the controls. Drifting to get around corners at greater speed is still present but seems less used, with more of the turns requiring a jab of the handbrake to change direction rapidly, either dumping all your speed or just a little.

The roads are well-designed for fast driving, using mostly a block structure in the heart of the city, presenting mostly straight roads that cross each other at right-angles, and some more winding roads with long sweeping bends further out in the countryside. There is rarely a problem of running out of room when trying to get to high speeds. And the whole city is available to be driven through, including side and back roads, shortcuts and car parks, mostly accessible by crashing through bright yellow barriers. The barriers are a nice touch, highlighting where the shortcuts and side roads are as well their absence indicating where it isn't feasible to drive off the road.

Sometimes, though, it isn't possible to stay on the road, either because a corner wasn't quite where you expected it to be, other traffic selfishly got in the way of your street race, or you hit the car's-width concrete wall placed in-between two yellow barriers, and this is where the game starts to falter. The Burnout series is known for its huge crashes, with wheels flying off, bonnets flipping up, windows smashing, and Burnout Paradise is no exception to this, even taking the level of detail higher. To show off all this detail, whenever you crash the game switches to a slow-motion camera for several long seconds, showing just how the physics engine crumples and smashes your car, perhaps in a way to stroke the technical designer's ego, before reverting to normal speed. This slow-motion camera may be vaguely interesting the first couple of times but it quickly gets irritating. It isn't helped when the same excruciating level of detail is shown for a head-on collision with a wall, where all the momentum is transferred in to a very solid object for the most boring crash in racing history. For a game that is all about speed, slowing the action down and keeping the player away from high-octane action is a curious design decision and one where there really ought to be an option to disable.

When you want more of a challenge than simply racing through the streets of Paradise City alone you can participate in challenges, which can consist of races, stunt runs, or takedown challenges where cars battle each other off the road. There are no traditional races in Burnout Paradise, in the sense that you select the race or series of races you want to attempt and then race around a set circuit, instead the freedom of being able to explore the city is paramount and events are built in to this concept. Each event is tied to a traffic-controlled intersection and you begin an event by reaching the intersection and revving your engine. It's a neat idea but deeply flawed, if only by the other complications the game puts in your path.

First, there is no easy way to repeat a failed event. When the event finishes you are left driving around where the event finished, so to start it again you have to navigate back to the appropriate intersection. I hope you remember where that was, because there are many intersections and most of them look alike in the grid layout. Even when I thought I'd found the same event again I have ended up participating in a different race than expected. Being able to repeat an event simply seems to me to be basic functionality in a racing game. [Edit: as noted in a comment, there is an easy way to repeat an event, so this is not really a problem.]

Second, some events require a specific car to be driven, with cars being available as unlockable content. Even when specific cars aren't needed, a specific type of car would give a significant advantage, either using a speed car for racing, stunt car for stunts, or muscle car for withstanding damage. But you can't change cars at the intersection through the menu, you need to go to a scrap yard to do that, and whilst there are quite a few scrap yards dotted around the city it still presents the problem of trying to find one, getting the right car and then sharing the problem of finding the same intersection again. Expecting a player to find a scrap yard, choose a specific car for a single event, then return to the intersection is ridiculous in a single-player game when it could easily be accomplished with a simple menu, and is made more irritating when the event doesn't even let you know on the spot if you have unlocked the car you need or if the trip to the scrap yard will be in vain.

It gets worse. After a few crashes, desperately tolerating the slow-motion tedium, another problem becomes apparent: your car gets slowly wrecked. The amount of abuse your car can withstand is finite and doesn't get fixed until you visit a repair garage. Luckily, the car's speed and handling don't appear to diminish with damage, just the amount of further damage it can take before it is destroyed. This becomes important in events, where the problem of car durability becomes painfully obvious. If you start an event in a car that has been through a few crashes without repair you could end up completely wrecking it with just a couple more missed corners, the result being a failed event. Unlike previous games, you can crash out of a race, which to me is a huge disappointment. In order to mitigate this possibility, particularly with takedown challenges, it is best to have a fully repaired car, or close to it, before starting an event. This means more wasted time driving around, looking for a garage, instead of actually racing.

What would make much more sense is to pull up at an intersection, be able to pick your car, have it fully repaired, and then start the event. If you fail, an option comes up asking if you would like to repeat the event or continue free-wheeling through the city, either with the same car selection or by going through the selection process again. This is what racing games are about and, somewhat ironically, exactly what Burnout managed to perfect: racing around without having to worry too much about getting lost or crashing. Having repair garages and scrap yards around the city would still be a good idea, as it gives the freedom to change and repair cars at will, but expecting players to visit them every few minutes is a huge drain on game time. I commend the developers for creating a fully developed city to drive around in, and it offers a great feeling of freedom to do so, but they have overlooked some simple playability issues.

The freedom of the city is also unfortunately a problem when racing. The races take place along the streets with only a starting point and a finishing line for the race, no route is marked. The mini-map in the corner of the screen and the compass at the top help guide you to the end, but ultimately you can drive wherever you want to try to get to the finish. The car also helpfully flashes its indicators to signal the expected road of choice, but in such a fast game where there are so many choices of roads to take some of the simple cues can be easily missed. Whilst being able to take any route to the finish line allows for shortcuts and alternative routes to be chosen it also means that you can go entirely the wrong way unintentionally.

Again, it is great that the whole city is free to be explored, but it impairs gameplay considerably when you drive down the main road instead of taking the minor road off a concealed fork, forcing you to make a u-turn as all the competitors race off behind you. Whilst there may not be a single route that is best, and many sub-optimal but valid ones, there are definitely wrong choices of routes and it would be good at least to be gently guided away from them. In Burnout 2 glowing blue barriers appeared if you strayed away from the set course, which you couldn't pass, and although the free-roaming design of Burnout Paradise wouldn't allow physical barriers it would surely be beneficial to have instanced glowing and insubstantial blue barriers appear across obviously wrong route choices during races, guiding players visibly without impeding movement.

As it is, too much time is needed in learning at least every major road before attempting to participate effectively in races, particularly when it is difficult to practice the race routes because of the lack of ability to repeat them. I want it the other way around: I want to be able to race effectively sooner rather than later, relying on my ability in being able to control the car, not because I have memorised the layout of the city. There is a horrid tendency to waste time in Burnout Paradise in order to get anywhere. I have turned the console off too many times because I can't find an intersection that doesn't require a car I'm not even sure that I've unlocked, or have failed a challenge because I didn't take a few minutes finding a repair garage before driving on egg shells to an intersection, or simply because the stupid slow-motion crashes became too intrusive to the otherwise-fluid action. And it's a great shame, because there is an amazing game here waiting to be played, but it is hidden behind time-wasting distractions.

As a final note, I must compare the single-player game to the on-line mode. When connecting via Xbox Live to a game hosted by friends many of the annoyances magically disappear. There are no slow-motion crashes, because of the obvious problem of synchronising a slow-motion crash with everyone else racing at speed, so the crashes are full-speed and dramatic, quickly getting you back in to the car and racing. The problem of car durability is as good as negated, as it seems like you come out of every crash in a newly repaired car, not gradually getting worse until you are automatically knocked out of and excluded from whatever event you are involved in. And with cooperative challenges selected from a menu, which can be called up regardless of your location, there is plenty to keep skilful players entertained without having to trawl through the city finding just the right intersection. Burnout Paradise is a completely different game on-line, a simple and superb racing game in a complex arena, and one that I dearly want to be replicated in single-player mode.

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Tags: burnout paradise, console, racing, xbox 360

Becoming an ambassador with the Argent Tournament

The Argent Tournament offers players the opportunity to joust their way to monetary and reputation gains, but it is not only with Northrend factions the Argent Crusade and Silver Covenant that reputation can be gained. The character can prove herself worthy of competing in the tournament, then collect enough marks of the valiant and defeat an Argent champion to become a champion herself, at which point it is possible to earn champion's writs. These writs can be used to buy items from capital city quartermasters at the tournament grounds, most notably items that offer a one-use gain in reputation with the city. As characters can serially become champions for each race's faction there exists the opportunity to increase your reputation with all five of the home cities, all the way to exalted. And, of course, with such a reputation comes the title of 'Ambassador'.

As someone who went to some effort to get my Draenei warrior riding a Darnassus mount before exploiting the benefits later by attaining Sapphire the title of ambassador it seems like another of those occasions where a reward becomes almost trivial to achieve compared to the effort required before the changes were made. I believe the standard reply to such changes is to complain that the game is being put in to 'easy mode' for the new players and that they don't know what it's like to have to earn an achievement when it is instead simply dropped in their laps. Whether it is trying to befriend the Timbermaw Furbolgs, get a Night Elf to Stormwind by running through Wetlands, or complete the epic paladin or warlock steed quest, there is always some reason to complain that we had it harder and should be rewarded more for our efforts.

Reflecting on my title of ambassador, and how so many more ambassadors must surely be waiting in the wings, I really don't think I mind. In fact, I think I quite like the change. On the one hand, I had to go out of my way to find quests and opportunities to increase my faction gain with the home cities, and becoming exalted with Darnassus by 40th level was actually a chore on occasions, all for the singular gain of raising my reputation, as there were few monetary or item gains as a result. On the other hand, there is nothing special about what I did, as I merely used the reputation system already in place and simply created a personal grind to achieve a goal for myself. And, even though the time zones were in my favour, it is quite possible that I frustrated some low-level players as I blasted through the newbie zones, as the only places left with sufficient quantities of quests, to gain my quick reputation.

I could claim that because I had to go to some personal effort for the achievement that so too should others, but if I am being honest the only effort I made was dedicating some time to gaining the achievement and title of ambassador. Finding and completing the quests to gain the reputation required only minimal ability beyond having an attention span. As an 80th level character I was never in any danger, even when I completed all of the quests in a dress, shunning the plate armour I would normally wear. Compare this to the Argent Tournament. Certainly, there is no threat in jousting, aside from failure becoming wasted time, and the only real danger comes from the champion-level quests. Although any competent player should be able to cope with the Argent Tournament champion daily quests they still demand a moderate level of skill and some level of concentration to complete.

Indeed, which is more of the challenge: stomping a 5th level be-candled kobold's head in to the ground with an 80th level titansteel boot, or defeating 80th level elite Scourge on horseback in Icecrown? Whereas I could leave Sapphire surrounded or even attacked by hostile mobs on Azuremyst Isle to feed my cat-and-a-half safe in the knowledge that I would return to a healthy character, I need to be active and mostly alert to gain champion's writs. And I think that is the crux of the argument. I don't think that World of Warcraft has been made easier by the introduction of gaining reputation through the writ, I think it has been made more relevant.

It may well be the case that Sapphire's title of ambassador no longer reveals the time I invested in to the character, but in the end time was all I invested to gain the achievement. Now it is no longer the case that low-level zones, which offer no decent rewards or challenges, need to be trawled through in order to gain a specific achievement, instead some new quests have been introduced with the Argent Tournament that promote the pursuit of the achievement in ways that offer extra incentives, along with a new mode of play in the form of jousting. And as the tournament is only open to 80th level characters, getting that exotic mount from a different faction for your 30th level character still presents a challenge, so World of Warcraft certainly hasn't been made easier. The game is simply offering level-appropriate content where it didn't exist before.

The champion's writs definitely present a positive change to reputation gain, much more so than the now-redundant runecloth hand-in quests that were previously the only way to increase reputation easily and reliably. I hope that many more characters aiming to be ambassadors take advantage of the opportunities available within the Argent Tournament rather than suffer potential drudgery completing trivial tasks that are truly beneath them.

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Tags: mmorpg, sapphire, world of warcraft

Clone jumping sounds incestuous

Dissuading a ranking Gallente officer from taking a position best suited to a friend of my Caldari Navy agent, with the liberal use of heavy missiles, was the last mission I accepted before heading back to mine some ice for Core Complexion, Inc. Not only was it quite a lucrative mission, both in terms of loot and reward ISK, but it also coincidentally and serendipitously increased my standings with the navy to 8.00. I only realise this when I am taking my Drake and Cormorant back to the Core Complexion, Inc. mission base, idly wondering what my recent work accomplished for my standings, so I'm not in the right place to take the new opportunity of installing a jump clone.

However, I already have the skill trained that lets me cope with having my personality transferred occasionally and so now that I also have the required standing with the navy it seems like a good time to dunk some meat in a vat and duplicate my gorgeous self. Needing to hop around a few systems for refining and manufacturing I pop in to the Caldari Navy station, which is on my route anyway, and take advantage of the medical facilities there. I upgrade my medical clone, as I am nearing fifteen million skill points now, and install a jump clone. Now I need to work out what to do with my new meat.

A bit of a chat with the corporation hopefully has cleared up some of the confusion I have been suffering about jump clones. My previous corporation were heavily in to PvP and suggested using jump clones when out on sorties to preserve any expensive implants in your main body's head, which made it sound like jump clones were used as cannon fodder. I got the impression that your implanted self was safe and you eschewed implants in your clone so as not to waste millions of ISK when podded. But it was never made clear about how this affected your abilities, and thus skill training times, nor could I find information about it.

I'm not sure if my PvP corporation fully understood the implications of using jump clones as protective fodder, they simply didn't mind, or if I'm still missing something important. From what I understand, the whole point of jump clones is the convenience of being able to 'jump' across vast reaches of space quickly without having to traverse the distance physically in laggardly spaceships. You install a clone in a handy location, take yourself off to another location many jumps away, and you can switch between the two depending on the function you want to perform, albeit only once per day. A jump clone just happens to be a regular clone that is available for use, rather than only activated upon death.

Everything about the clone is, as expected, just like you. And without implants the clone's abilities will be as impaired as you would be without them. I can only assume this means skill training times will change depending on what implants the clone has compared to the alpha body—although depending on how many clones you have and the various implants used the whole business of 'who is the real you?' gets muddled to the point of becoming nonsense. I'm only quibbling about implants and skill training times because the implants are expensive and training is important to keep ticking over at an optimal rate. I don't really want to jump in to a clone only to have my training times increase by a few days, and fully implanting a new me will cost tens of millions of ISK, so soon after building up some substantial profit.

I could probably make good use of a clone, though. I am still based up in Caldari space, working with Core Complexion, Inc. slowly towards Tech II manufacture, as well as explointing the markets in the region, whereas my corporation is deep in Amarr space, and I know I really ought to try to get myself more involved with other capsuleers to get the most out of my time in New Eden. With a jump clone, I can continue my manufacturing and production whilst being able to spend more time with my corporation colleagues, without having to spend a fair amount of time making the journey between the two distant regions. I will probably need to maintain two ship hangars but as long as business remains profitable it shouldn't be that much of a burden. I just need to work out what to do about implants.

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Tags: clone, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Increasing drum pad sensitivity in Guitar Hero: World Tour

My confidence in Guitar Hero: World Tour drumming isn't helped when I am sure I strike the right pad at the right time but it doesn't register, and I find that the orange cymbal pad is remarkably insensitive compared to the other pads. I really need to hit it hard and centrally for the hit to be recorded, which can become frustrating when I get occasional misses through no apparent fault of my own. After a few days of this I research the problem. Opening up the pad shows it to be a simple transducer feeding to a connector, so nothing that can be adjusted and there are no loose wires.

I remember Zoso being able to adjust the sensitivities of his Guitar Hero: World Tour drum kit but I can't find anything about sensitivities in any of the menus, only an option to calibrate the lag between the output from the console and the display on the screen, which has already made a difference in correcting the timing of the notes. I perform a search of the web to find out more information and see that Red Octane admitted that there were sensitivity issues with some kits and created a piece of software to enable 'tuning' the sensitivities of the Guitar Hero drums. I also read complaints that there is no Mac version of the software and that it also requires a USB-to-MIDI cable, which is not something most people have lying around.

Luckily, I am a late-adopter of the game, to the extent that Red Octane now have a Mac version of the Guitar Hero drum tuner and information on obtaining a free USB-to-MIDI cable from them if required. Thinking that increasing the sensitivity of the orange cymbal would solve the problem of its transducer not registering precies hit I download the software and inquire through technical support about getting sent an interface cable.

The first reply from tech. support informs me that my problem is not normally fixed with the software, so they are reluctant to send me a cable. This sounds a bit peculiar to me, considering the hardware involved and issue I an experiencing, but I reply politely detailing what exactly the problem is. I am then asked to swap the orange and yellow cymbals over to see if the problem changes sides as well. This fault-finding exercise is an obvious way to remove problems external to the pads so I swap the two cymbals over and, sure enough, the problem remains with the orange pad. I report this to the advisor, with an abundance of detail just to ensure that his understanding I reported a problem with the yellow cymbal pad, rather than actually with the orange one, was only typo.

The next reply I receive confirms that there is a sensitivity problem with the cymbal pad and that they will send an interface cable, 'if you wish', along with a confirmation number for that, before mentioning another option being to buy a replacement pad, now available separately. I repeat my desire for an interface cable, quoting the confirmation number, and restating that the kit is only a week old and I would rather not have to pay to get a faulty part replaced. The response comes back that a cable has already been confirmed for despatch, hence the confirmation number, and a link for warranty support as the kit is newly purchased.

Now, I don't quite see how the phrase 'if you wish' fits in with actually having performed the action, nor do I really appreciate being lied to in the first place about the tuning kit not fixing my problem. I would not have been insulted to have to work through a fault-finding step or two to confirm the diagnosis, particularly as the company is beneficent enough to send out free cables to anyone who asks, but I don't think lies are the best way to advance customer cooperation. Never the less, I get a cable sent to me and a link for warranty support, should I require it after attempting to change the sensitivities of the kit, so I consider the conversation to be successful, even if a little frustrating overall.

With the cable and tuning software I am able to crank up the sensitivity of the orange cymbal pad up, even past eleven! The difference in which hits now register is significant. Playing through a few tracks that make good use of the orange pad, like Smashing Pumpkins' Today, is now a much less frustrating experience as more notes are picked up by the software and I am measured more by my general ability than perfection in hitting an area one square inch in size. I may increase the sensitivity a little higher, but more may be gained in seeing if I can get the stalk for the orange pad to be a little more stable, such as the yellow one is. Either way, my playing will be boosted as my confidence grows and I will continue to practice, practice, practice on my way to becoming a wannabe drummer.

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Tags: console, drumming, guitar hero, xbox 360

Blue lasers of icy death

My Core Complexion, Inc. agent is probably wondering where I am. He asked me to get him some ice within twenty four hours and it has been almost a week since I undocked. I'll simply claim I took a wrong turn at the stargate, he'll probably believe me. In fact, I've been training my ice harvesting, astrogeology and mining barge skills so that I would actually be able to mine the ice instead of ramming my Osprey in to the asteroid in a vain attempt to break off some cargo hold-sized chunks. With everything finally learnt to an agreeable level it is time to fulfil my responsibility, so I give my Caldari Navy agent one last hand, by taking out a Gallente diplomat who probably had it coming to him anyway, before heading back to the adjacent region.

First, I need a mining barge. Skills on their own don't really mean much. As the two agents are in different regions I take the opportunity to compare prices of ships and equipment when travelling and find where the cheaper prices are. I buy myself a Retriever, as planned, along with two ice harvesters and a mining upgrade module to help reduce the cycle time of the harvesters. Grabbing a shuttle to pick up the Retriever, I fit out the mining barge, name my new ship 'Fido' and head out to a deadspace astroid field where thar be ice.

When I drop out of warp I adjust my overview settings to display asteroids, find the ice asteroids I am to mine, lock on to them as I fire my main engines to approach one, and when I am within range of my ice harvesters I fire up the cool blue beams! Now, it may seem that I am relating too much of the tedious details but, sadly, what I have described are just about the most exciting aspects of ice mining. The ice harvesters have a cycle time of about eight minutes, after the fitted ice mining upgrade module and skills are taken in to account, so it's simply a matter of starting them and waiting. The harvesters also seem to have an annoying habit of cutting out the moment the ship's cargo hold is full, so with two lasers and a hold that can only contain two units of ice I need to pay some attention if I am to off-load to a jet can, as the harvesters cut out immediately on completing a cycle and I could waste some time reactivating the idle modules.

I was hoping that doubling up on the ice harvesters and the larger cargo hold of the Retriever would save me some effort, and I suppose it does in a way. But just to annoy me, the deadspace mission pocket has two ice asteroids, both of which I need to mine in their entirety to complete the mission, which are spaced over twenty kilometres away and consist of five units each of ice. Their distance apart means that I cannot get in to position between the two where my ice harvesters' ten kilometre range could mine both of them at once, which means that with an odd number of units of ice to be mined in each I need to have one of the harvesters powered-down for the final unit, making me use six cycles to obtain all the ice instead of five.

With a cycle time around the eight minute mark I actually jettison my pod from the Retriever at one point and head out to a station to pick up some food for dinner. The ice harvesters' cycle is complete when I get back, with the ice needing to be transferred to the jet can and the cycle restarted, but at least I get something else useful accomplished in the period.

Ice has a much greater volume per unit, which can make make ice mining seem less productive. Mining for minutes at a time to get one or two units of ice doesn't feel like accomplishing much, but viewed by volume brings it in to perspective. I suppose ice mining may not be much different from standard veldspar mining. The longer cycle time of ice mining could compare to multiple cycles of a normal mining laser, because ore would need to be transferred to a jet can less regularly than ice. I suppose the ice mining mission didn't particularly take longer to complete than a normal mining mission. Well, except for the skill training and buying a new ship, and at least I get to keep them.

As corporation colleague Kename Fin asks for some blue ice for the corporation's POS, and maybe the wormhole endeavour, after completing my mission—where the agent is strangely pleased with my efficiency—I pop out to the ice field in the system where the deadspace mission pocket was located to see what the opportunities are like. I warp in to an extraordinary sight: Retrievers and Mackinaws as far as the eye can see, blue lasers setting space on fire. I can honestly say I have never seen such a busy asteroid field before, and it is quite wonderful. Sadly, there is only white glaze ice, no blue, which may be because I am in high-sec, it is the first ice to be mined because of its value, or a combination of the two. Either way, I turn around and head back to the station, no ice in my hold. Another day, perhaps.

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Tags: eve online, mining, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Horde's winning defensive strategy in Wintergrasp

Wintergrasp bugs and geographical bias aside, the Horde are continuing to defeat the Alliance on a regular basis partly because they are employing strong and effective strategies as a team and partly because the Alliance are less likely to work as a cohesive unit.

Some Horde forces take advantage of the portal between Dalaran and Wintergrasp to get in to the region early, which some say is how they consistently defend successfully but overall it is not too important compared to their tactics when the battle begins. They set up a moderately sized strike group, maybe a dozen or more players, to assault one of the southern workshops, where the deaths of NPCs and any repelled defence grants them the first promoted rank, allowing them to build catapults. With the workshop under Horde control they proceed to build catapults and move on to the destruction of the southern towers.

Whilst catapults are the weakest of the vehicles they are also the fastest, allowing them to escape any melee attackers easily. As each workshop under your faction's control allows the construction of four vehicles, with the two fortress workshops and a southern workshop allowing twelve vehicles in total, not including the Broken Temple workshop that is also likely to be in Horde control that early in the battle, the Horde can deploy enough catapults to demolish a tower rapidly, with enough of a strike force left to defend against any skirmishers foolish enough to engage them.

The Horde destruction of the southern towers is almost a guarantee. It occurs so quickly and early in the battle that the fortress is hardly at risk from vehicular onslaught and if the Alliance send enough players to mount an effective defence the Horde gain the advantage from keeping all involved in a pitched battle in the south of Wintergrasp, away from the main objective of the fortress. But the strong strategy is not yet over.

With the three towers destroyed and a dozen or more catapults at their command the Horde move north to assault the remaining workshops. Even without the numbers to take control of the workshops in a ground attack the catapults can instead destroy the workshop from range, as quickly as a southern tower is destroyed, after which it defaults to the destroying faction's control. Without adequate awareness and mobility to regain already-lost workshops the Alliance can soon find themselves only being able to control a maximum of four vehicles, occasionally even none.

Vehicles are necessary to destroy infrastructure in Wintergrasp, and with no enemy vehicles deployed a successful defence is assured, making the Horde strategy already looking strong. Stronger still is the Alliance's weakness in being apparently selfish. Whilst the Horde cooperate towards a victory it seems that many of the Alliance are in Wintergrasp only for the glory.

Instead of showing battleground awareness and striving to regain workshops distant from the front line, for the greater good of an overall victory, Alliance characters are too eager to pilot a siege engine or demolisher and be the 'hero' to break down the inner doors of the fortress. Whilst there is the obvious effect of losing control of workshops denying even vehicles to the battle there is a secondary effect, where the single-minded nature of the glory-seekers take the path of least resistance.

Resurrecting at the most convenient graveyard, those out for glory drop in to the Sunken Ring workshop, make a vehicle and pilot it directly to the fortress, hoping to be the one who triumphantly breaks through. But with other players having the same instincts this weak tactic only leads to a stream of vehicles heading through the same bottleneck, where they are met by a constant barrage of AoE spells quickly demolishing all incoming traffic. With the shortest route back being the way they came, or resurrecting at the same graveyard, the same players can throw themselves on the blades of the Horde with mindless efficiency.

In one battle, so single-minded and predictable were the Alliance attackers that almost all the Horde didn't notice I had ridden across to the Broken Temple workshop, made a siege engine, and driven up to the western wall. I managed to destroy one of the fortress's towers, break down an outer-wall, destroy the western courtyard workshop and make a dent in the inner-wall before my vehicle was destroyed. If the Alliance could only split their forces more effectively, retain control of the workshops and attack on two fronts we would likely have more success. The intensity of the defence would necessarily also have to be split, probably giving vehicles more time to break down the walls.

The continued defeats in Wintergrasp have woken some of the dedicated players from their reverie in believing assaulting the fortress is almost guaranteed. There are better strike groups attempting to stop the Horde in the destruction of the towers, and calls go out to defend and secure workshops as well as not to continue building the almost-useless catapults in the late-game. What is certainly needed is for others to pay heed to the calls and for more attention to be shown to securing victory for the Alliance, not glory for the individual.

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Tags: mmorpg, pvp, wintergrasp, world of warcraft

Geographical bias in Wintergrasp

The Horde have almost complete control of Wintergrasp on my server at the moment. Even with an small advantage of numbers the Alliance assault falters before we get too far in to the fortress and the Horde manage to repel the invaders successfully. It is becoming a little demoralising for a battle that should favour the attacker.

Part of the problem is the unbalanced initial conditions, most likely caused by a bug, whereby the Horde are in control of the Sunken Ring and Broken Temple workshops at the start of the battle, regardless of who is defending. This saves them some initial time by not having to capture the workshops before striking against opponents to gain ranks in order to get in to vehicles. Another problem is the physical layout of Wintergrasp Fortress, which appears to favour the Horde whether in attack or defence.

Entering the battle for Wintergrasp when not in control of the region the Alliance teleport in to the east, the Horde to the west. This gives best access to the Sunken Ring workshop for the Alliance and Broken Temple workshop for the Horde, because the only graveyard that cannot be controlled by the opposition remains close to that location for the duration of the battle. The faction that controls the region defaults to teleporting in to the fortress itself, with the fortress graveyard inside the walls but in the face of the mountain being the final stand.

The position of the two entrances means that Alliance will naturally attack the east of the fortress and the Horde the west. The slow speed of the vehicles, necessary to breach the walls for victory, makes attacking an alternative wall sub-optimal. However, this is what gives the Horde a significant advantage both when attacking and defending, because the path from the fortress graveyard funnels players through the eastern courtyard.

When attacking, the Horde pile through the western wall of the fortress, often destroying the western courtyard workshop in the process, which permanently denies the Alliance access to vehicles as the workshop cannot be recaptured for repair. To defend the western wall Alliance troops have to descend the fortress graveyard path, exit the eastern courtyard and run or ride across the central courtyard. This travelling, whilst not terribly far, takes time, with the extra time put to good use by the Horde's siege engines in demolishing the fortress walls.

In contrast, when defending, Horde reinforcements come from the same fortress graveyard to almost directly on top of the Alliance assault on the eastern walls of the fortress, with almost no travelling required. Even if we are efficient in mowing them down they soon reappear. Essentially, the Horde have a considerable advantage, both in having the shorter distance to travel to defend and the clearer path to the fortress doors when attacking, and that's ignoring the relative safety of the two internal workshops when they are defending.

A possible solution would be to flip the layout of Wintergrasp fortress horizontally, depending on who controls it, to present the same defensive position to either assaulting faction, but as the region is not instanced it would doubtless be awkward to implement as well as likely to cause confusion. However, a simple solution would simply be to have only a single portal and flight master outside of the fortress. Rather than have a separate starting and default zone for both Alliance and Horde have a single point that switches control as does the fortress. This should cause no problems for implementation and player orientation, and also fits with the theme, as the zone of Wintergrasp's controlling faction is currently deserted of NPCs anyway.

If a single PC spawn point were implemented it would remove the obvious geographical bias and, particularly if the western point were chosen as the default, revert the battle for Lake Wintergrasp back to favouring the attacker.

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Tags: mmorpg, pvp, wintergrasp, world of warcraft

Finding the meaning in the colour of the places I've been

Kirith Kodachi's Places I've Been meme has been picked up by many people, giving an insight in to how capsuleers move around New Eden. Unfortunately, also picked up by many players is the idea that the colour of the dots on the galaxy map represents the frequency of visits, claiming that the further away from yellow and towards the red a dot is coloured the greater number of times the system has been visited. Rather than take this at face value for my own Places I've Been in EVE Online screen grab I take time to verify this claim, and find it to be false.

I have both red and yellow dots on my map that have been visited once, as well as red and yellow dots that have been visited many times. However, in looking more closely I find that the size of the dot indicates the number of visits to that system, the larger the dot the more the system has been entered. This is true of both yellow and red dots, and the various gradients in-between. I reply with a comment on Kirith's original post pointing out that the colour of the dot has no bearing on the number of visits, but it appears to have been missed by many people as posts continue to propagate the initial incorrect assumption.

Apart from my frustration, coupled with a sprinkling of fascination, at seeing how erroneous information spreads, my only problem is working out what the yellow-to-red colour actually represents. Spending some time in my galaxy map and investigating the systems I have been to, helped out by corporation friend Kename Fin, I initially only come away with negative conclusions. The colour of the dots does not represent system security status, with yellow and red dots present both in high- and low-sec systems; the date of the last visit, with yellow and red dots both having last visited dates from last year as well as a week ago; agents in the system who you can work with; actual colour of the system's star; faction space; number of celestial objects in the system; or anything else we can collectively think of.

Then I notice in Kirith's initial thread a comment suggesting that perhaps the colour of the dot represents involvement in hostile action within that system, the redder the dot the more combat you have engaged in. Back to the galaxy map for me and I take a look, as it certainly is a reasonable idea and one I hadn't thought about. I find a handful of systems that I have visited recently and roughly the same number of times overall that are coloured both red and yellow, but unfortunately I also know I know I have not engaged in combat in any of them, as I simply pass through them on my way to the corporation's POS in Amarr space. Even with systems so close together and sharing similar visitation information I cannot discern why there should be a difference in colour.

I can state with confidence that the size of the dot on the map directly relates to the number of visits to that system, just as I can state with confidence that I have no idea what the yellow-to-red colouring of the system represents. I remain quite interested to find out what the colour means, but without further ideas I am stumped.

Posted in Gaming | 3 Comments »
Tags: eve online, maps, meme, mmorpg

Returning to the navy

I am currently avoiding my Core Complexion, Inc. agent after he asked me to get him some ice quite promptly and I end up distracting myself with three days of skill training before I can help him out. I am not one to sit around idly waiting for my training to complete and would rather be active. My market orders have recently been restocked and my new BPOs are having their material efficiencies improved, so there isn't much to do on the business front. I could indulge my R&D agents' thinly veiled desperate pleas for attention but the simplistic missions they offer will hardly keep me busy for long.

Instead, I fire up the engines on my Drake and salvaging Cormorant and head back to my old Caldari Navy level three mission agent. Working encounter missions with him gives me several benefits, including retrieving a good quantity of mission loot to recycle with scrapmetal processing skills for highly profitable module manufacturing, as well as continuing to build up my faction standing with the navy in order to get my first jump clone. I am close to achieving the required faction standing of 8.00 but not quite there yet. One effect of my current standing is that it gives me access to level four mission agents, but I don't quite fancy splashing out on a ninety million ISK battleship just yet, particularly as I probably ought to improve some of my core competency skills first, so I am sticking to level three missions for now.

As part of the cosmic humour prevalent in all aspects of life, the first mission I am given after moving my battlecruiser and destroyer is a simple courier job. I swear that agents get upset if you don't talk to them for a while and give you a demeaning first task on your return. Still, it's not like I am incapable of moving some soil around and at least it doesn't require the large hold of my Badger, which remains effectively a region away, and once I have completed this mission I am given something both more demanding and requiring the use of excessive firepower.

I get a few encounter missions with one more courier mission snuck between them, with the encounter missions being quite profitable, particularly wiping out and clearing up after five pockets of rats in an Angels Extravaganza. I get good mission rewards and, with the exception of an attack on Gallente ships, some decent bounties, along with dozens of wrecks to loot and salvage that will keep my module manufacturing running for a while longer when reprocessed. With several days available to spend with the Navy as my skills train I think I'll stick around a bit longer to enjoy causing big explosions before heading back to the more sedentary manufacturing agent and his requests for 'interesting' rocks.

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Tags: agents, cormorant, drake, eve online, mmorpg, penny ibramovic