Hidden Agenda Dibs Race

On Sunday night we had a fun corp event, a dibs race around the galaxy in shuttles ! At each location there was a nice price to be had, of course you would only find out after winning the Dibs on a location. Clicking on a contract never was so much fun !

The way it was set up, was that the 15 or so that participated undocked and sprinted to the nearest location. About half way a new location would be announced and shortly after that a third. There would be three active locations almost all the time. So you had to make the decision whether you kept on going to your original destination or change half way. A few times a destination was announced that everybody passed through a bit before, ensuing in lots of cursing in chat and vent !

dibs_race

It was quite hilarious when someone yelled DIBS as they arrived in a station as first, other people would go ‘omg I was 2j away !’ and so forth. Once DIBS was called you had to wait in the station for the second round. So everybody won something in the end. The last person in round 1 had to make 26j to Berta to claim a price which was extremely funny and left me plenty of time to get me some coffee !

So how did I do ? I arrived first at Gelfiven IX and won me an Amarr transport ship. Which is nice as Belautis can almost fly it, only need amarr industrial V, and with the learning skill reset coming up that shouldn’t be too hard. For round 2 I just waited until a destination in Minmatar space was announced so I could be there fast. At Anstard VI I won a set of Battlecruiser blueprints, which is always good to have.

Thanks to Ruffio and Cattis for setting this up and making this a fun corp event ! It must have been a lot of work preparing this, hope you enjoyed it as much as most of the corporation members who participated did Smile.

Corp Hopping

Casiella brought up this issue as Question of the Day on twitter. I thought it was interesting enough to make a blogpost about it.

The big difference with Eve and other mmorpgs (as far as I know, haven’t checked them all) , is that your corporation history is being tracked. Everyone can see what corps your character has been a member of. In warcraft or other similar mmos, there is no record of what guilds you have been a part of. There is a site called http://www.warcraftrealms.com/, that sort of keeps track, but it’s not complete and it’s not in game, so it would take more effort. I don’t know if people use it for the purpose of tracking people down.

The other difference is that there is more at stake in Eve. Also corporate theft is an accepted game mechanic. As far as I know, it’s not in most other mmos. You can steal loot from a guild bank in wow, then type /gquit, and that guilt will loose some items, but in Eve you can ruin the work people have been doing for months or years.

BunnyHopping

The downside of this is that in Eve it can sometimes be pretty hard to find the right corp. When I was looking for a new corp, it took quite some time before I found one that sort of felt right. Also, once you have been a member of a somewhat shady corporation, chances are that even years later people will ask about, and it can throw up a red flag. But corp hopping can happen, especially early on in an Eve career when you’re not sure what you want. Or you joined a corp and it turned out their time zones are different, or they’re just not as fun as you thought it would be.

If you still find yourself corp hopping after quite some time in Eve, you might want to wonder what it is that you want to do. It will probably also make it harder for you to find something else. So be careful with too much hopping, don’t get dozens of corporations in that history ;).

The week in review

To be honest it’s more than a week in review, more the past few weeks or so, since I have been playing a lot more, and participating in the blogging community again, but the title sounded more catchy :). Also this post was getting a bit long so I am saving some stuff, like my thoughts on the upcoming expansion for another post.

First of all, I joined a new corp ! For me this is like turning a new page, a new step in my Eve career. I had been a member of Rakeriku for almost as long as I played, and it was so sad it just bled to death. But the people who were in there, and who are still active, still keep in touch through our own private chat channel which is pretty neat. Some have started a one man corp, some joined an 0.0 corp, and some are still looking around. Hidden Agenda is the corp I joined. After hanging out on various chat channels, webforums and the like (this is worthy of another blogpost entirely), they seemed to be the best fit for me. Thanks to Tarik for suggesting them in the comments ! I already picked up some good trade and invention suggestions, and we’re all looking forward on working together on the upcoming expansion to explore the wormholes. Honourable mention to Rising Sun Inc, they seem to be nice people as well, just thought HA would be more my style.

Ishukone_CorporationAbout missioning: I only needed few 10k of lps for the Ishukone corporation to get the 5 Caldari Navy BCU bpc, so I grinded that out in Hentogeira. They sold like hotcakes once they came out of the oven ! Must still be quite a demand for these type of items (ie. expensive mission gear ;)). I was getting a bit tired of being send into lowsec by the agent in Hento though and have now moved the mission gear to Gekutami, 4 jumps south. A bit crowded there but 2 decent level 4 agents in the system, and no lowsec missions. I don’t run too many missions anymore, but I just like having the opportunity.

On the industrial front: I cashed in the lp’s I had accumulated over the past few months (since late november I think) and did some invention again. Was quite lucky getting 4 ogre II bpcs out of 5 tries. Then 4 out of 4 thermal shield hardeners failed :(. That was a first for me !

2302 Of course I blamed it on Quantum Rise invention changes, but after some forum digging I think it’s probably just bad luck. I currently have some more in the oven and hope those will succeed. Not that big a profit on those, but every bit counts ;). Producing t2 items also comes with a bit of flying about to get all the parts at the best price. I invested in some bpos to make the ‘subitems’ myself, but the current price of ferogel and the like will still make expensive. But maybe I can shave off some expenses.

I was successful in inventing some Kitsune bpcs, so my first step in T2 production has been made. I am currently learning Cruiser Construction, so I might try my hands on somewhat more difficult invention later this month.

The eveblogosphere (including twitter) is currently buzzing with activity. Everybody is anxious to try the new expansion, it’s one of the biggest and game changing ones the game has seen so far ! More on that in a later post.

Casual Corp In Eve

As you might have read, the previous my corp Rakeriku had a revival when we went to 0.0, but slowly died again. Now most of us that still play went our separate ways, though we still have a nice chat channel where we meet. I haven’t been playing a lot for the past two month, but of course as usual the old Eve bug is coming back and have been running a few missions and done some small industrial activities again, but it’s still kinda sad to be the only one in corp chat all the time.

I was wondering if there is such a thing as a casual corp in eve. No mandatory mining ops, though I wouldn’t mind one every now and then, and maybe a bit of mission running, though I can easily do that by myself, I am of course willing to help people out. I am not much into pvp (shooting each other’s ships that is, industrial pvp is fine :)), but a war every now and then wouldn’t be too bad. I am currently based in Hentogarira, but I don’t mind clone jumping a bit. I got plenty of skills for most activities, like exploration, industry and I fly a mean Raven.

Have versatile character and alt, will travel (though only through hi-sec space)

Any of the other bloggers maybe have a suggestion where to look for such a corp ? Or any of the regular readers ? If not i’ll just start my own for me and my alts ;).

Update: I am in the EU-Timezone

Revitalizing a corporation

First off a little history, Rakeriku has been around since late 2005. I joined them as a noobie january 2006 after a month of Eve University. The corp was buzzing with activity then. We had an online shop, build a lot of ships and had well attended mining ops. But after a while people moved on, and the core of the corp (about 8 people or so with alts) remained. We’re all relatively old characters now. Independent with plenty of isk to back us up. And that’s where the problem lies :).

When you’re a few months old, a mining op with a few vets is great, but once people grow older, running missions is more lucrative, and start doing that. Mining ops get attended less, people move on to other ventures etc.. So now here we are 2 years later (give or take) and corp chat has become more of a chatbox. Everybody is off to do their own thing (me included).

We did a bit of recruitment earlier in the year, but only a few of the people that joined stuck around. We just don’t have that much to offer to newer players, besides our knowledge (uhm) of the game ;).

Here are a few things we’re planning or doing at the moment to revitalize the corp a bit:

  • setting up a POS in hisec for research which will need maintaining etc.
  • pos in low sec for carrier production. This will need minerals so mining might be interesting again.
  • looking into level 5 agents for group missions. No experience with this yet, if anyone has speak up :). Are the systems camped by pirates or are people not bothering with it ?
  • looking for other corporations to join our alliance. This will get us in touch with other people we can help out or work together with.

Regarding that last point: If you’re an industrial corp big or small, looking for a nice alliance to join to minimize the wardecs, have some friendly experienced players to chat to and help out with mining and production, contact me in game and we can talk about it. Just to be clear, we have nothing against pvp, but we don’t have anything to offer pvp corporation.

If anyone can offer more advise for revitalizing a corporation, please leave a comment !

Ofcourse our recruitement offer is still valid as well (except for the 0.0 part).