Internet spaceships

Sorry. Bonehead it is then

Chris, or forms thereof.

Man...now Skeletor is making us drop our affectionate nicknames for him. It was fun while it lasted.

Chris - Christ - Jesus.
I was close.

And quiet pissboy.

Hehe, funny thing is that my name is kinda my nickname. Explanation: My full name is Vasilios-Bill Zavos. if you think people misspronounced Thaadd, you have no idea what having a first name like Vasilios, in a mostly french speaking province no less, is like. Now for some strange reason Greeks have always translated Vasilios into Billy or Bill when, in fact, it translates into Basil.

Yes. That's right. My full name in english would be Basil-Bill Zavos.

Thankfully I've been called Billy for longer than I can remember.

Thaadd,

I DID watch the whole thing. Congratulations on the win! Like Mr. Skeletor I had a hard time following the action at first. The graphics and concept look so cool. But so far I just can't justify joining a MMO myself.

So how does a battle like that work? Isn't one's character dead after the ship blows up and you have to start all over? Or was this some kind of side game?

And for the record, anybody who meets me in real life can call me Mr. Lizard.

BillN

And for the record, anybody who meets me in real life can call me Mr. Lizard.

I ain't going there, BillN.

Nope... Nope.... Nope...

--Mike L.

This is a side battle - a tournament, which does not in the slightest bit resemble real fights. Main differences - we're equal footing ship wise, matching class and fittings. Typically people 'gank' (pirate) folks when they know they can win. Fair fights are well... fair. It's like mugging people who only are armed as you are, and your same physique. With a cop watching to make sure it stays clean.

In a typical fight, it would be a victim either in a non combat ship (mining, hauling goods, etc), or in a combat ship smaller than you, with you and friends equipped to lock them down electronically (Electro magnetic pulse, target jamming), slow them down, and prevent them from running away - then using missiles, robot drones, blasters, lasers, or rail guns to do damage. To make it more complex, there are different classes of damage that different ammo and gun types do, and matching equipment to shield from it. So you can 'tank' for thermal and explosive damage, only to have the other guy come in with electromagnetic and kinetic...

Tackling is the game term - a sort of suicidal role that young/adrenaline craving players do, to aide their bigger friends to 'dps' them (damage per second). I am a tackler. I die alot. I enjoy this.

Eve is incidentally one solid heap of acronyms. In Iceland this year, waiting at the airport gate to leave, about 30 of us were hanging out and and chatting, and it was pointed out that we were almost completely unintelligible to passers by. I try to remember this, but I believe fail a bit . I am pretty good at noticing rolled eyes.

So combat - either small gang (5-30 people, on a few or equal numbers) or major fleet (I have been on 200 on 200 player fights) you have a commander on a secondary voice over IP program calling targets by name or class, as primary, secondary, etc. Wing commanders control their class of players/ships, and get them into tactical positions. Pilots try to listen, but there are accents, lag, bad microphones, etc to deal with. One of my Fleet commanders is Welsh. It's really hard to understand him when he gets excited. Eve is, incidentally extremely popular with ex (and current) military folks from all over the world.

If you get injured, you can try to warp away (if you are not tackled). If you fail to do this, your ship will problably blow up. You collect insurance if you thought to do this beforehand. You are in a little pod, capsule (in Eve, you do not have bodies, but are Dune-like capsule people, floating in goo) - which has a very small scan signature radius. If you can get away in a pod, great! You just buy a new ship, and dock up into it. If you get 'podded' you jump into a clone, which lacks all the expensive crap people have implanted in their characters meat. You need to buy more of this, or if you die alot, you say 'meh' and just go with being stupider than average, and save money.

Hmm. I think I just rambled through a quarter of my lunch break.
If you want to see a more 'art directed' video that a fan made, using in game footage (which he speeds up a bit) check this out.

Oh,

The BBC did a write up of my internet spaceships this week! Kinda cool. (I am of the Goon faction, of course.)

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7905924.stm

One of my in-game bosses:
But spymaster Mittani scoffed at calls for in-game morals, noting that without dirty tricks, GoonSwarm would have had no chance of toppling a more established corporation like BoB.

He wrote: "We don't have any advantages, so we can't obey your stupid 'space bushido'. We're going to spy, we're going to use defectors, we're going to lie, cheat, steal and be bastards."

For your own health I think you need to drop the spaceship and come out zombie hunting with the boys.

Zombies? Tell me more...

Someone is not paying attention to sticky threads!

fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_kune...ew&catid=17&id=20477

Zombies are boring, the game you want to play is Team Fortress 2.

Ah, I must have missed that. I am currently getting my extra fancy, extra non functional new computer RMA'd - well, when I wake up early enough to actually want to argue with Newegg.com that the bits do not work... so the only Steam game I can play is Civ 3. I am not a big one for FPS, anyways, mostly because I suck ass at them

I'll add my steam name to the list when I get the computer up and going.

Thaadd wrote:

I am not a big one for FPS, anyways, mostly because I suck ass at them

That's fine, you'll fit right in with Moss "just leave Mr S and get on the boat" Icon then.

Time for my yearly 'get the hell out of dodge' vacation. I'm off to Iceland to hang out for a week with my spaceship nerd friends. Rough 15 of us are hitting the convention from my 'Corp' - should be about a thousand or so other players. Eve's fanfest is small for a video game convention, but then, it is Iceland in October.

I've packed a couple games (CoC cards and travel ingenious) - 13 homemade 'Goon' shirts http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3185/2972156697_23de50e7da.jpg clothes, instant coffee, and a camera.

Coworkers are going to be pretend-me, while I am gone....

Back on the 7th!