I know some people like a short blog, and this is very short, very quick, very blunt and very, very political.
 
FYI: CCP's DUST514 is going to be PS3 exclusive because:

“Apparently it’s because the PS3 is much better designed for online worlds and micro-payments”
 
Suffice to say, many hackers agree with this.
 
BTW, I have read as many news reports as I could before I made my mind up, so I do know CCP's reasons for doing this incredibly stupid act.
 
Also, I expect to get a lot of flame for posting this.
 
Disclaimer: I am an independent gamer.  The views expressed above are purely my own and not support by Sony, Microsoft or CCP.  Or anyone else for that matter.

As expressed in my previous blog, trust is a big issue in EVE.  So now I'm taking it up a level to the people who are running a corp, and want to get more members, or the opposite, a new player who's looking to join a corp.

First a disclaimer, I am not running a corp, however, my corp IS recruiting.  Unfortunately, I will not vouch for anyone claiming to know me through giantbomb, and will not support any EVE player who has been playing for less than 3 months.  Feel free to use my name in your application, and the link to this blog, but do not think it will guarantee you a way into the corp I'm in.

Disclaimer over.

Since I've started posting blogs on GB, I've gathered a lot of followers...  Well, 9 probably isn't alot, but I was only on 2 before I started my EVE blogs so 7 IS a lot in that respect...  so I thought I'd use my new found blogging capabilities to drum up some interest in Corps, specifically mine, but I think there is also a GB corp so I'll try and find and include the details for that too.  Ah!  What the fudge...  Just open a bottle of water without taking my eyes off the screen and found I'd picked up a bottle of 7UP...  Really just screwed with my mind...  Ahem.

Okay, no giant bomb corp that I could find any more, but  Cronus Miners has GB users, speak to Sacerdos87.

Right, so if your not interested in joining my corp or Cronus Miners, how do you go about it?

Ask in local, especially if you in a n00b system.  Or ask in the recruitment channel (more on joining channels later in my next blog on Friday 22nd (my next day off)).  Finally keep an eye out for corp's dropping cans in space.  They normally say something like "[Corp Name Here] looking for new pilots - [list of activites (i.e. Mining, Missioning, PvP, wormholes) here]".  E.g. "Knights Industrial is hiring - Missions Mining and Exploration".  With these cans, click on the one that caught your eye in the overview, then click on the show info icon.  You'll get a description of what the can is (normally a small secure can).  Ignore this and click on the image of the pilot who placed the can.  Go to his/her bio and have a read.  This tells you a bit about the recruiter's personality.  Then click on his/her corp Icon, which gives you info on the corp.  Many a time I've seen a can I liked the look of but when I get to the corp info, I see a little line like "Must have TeamSpeak" (more on TeamSpeak and Ventrilo in my next blog) or "US Timezones only".  These little lines are probably the ones you'll look at more than anything.  So the corp will give you a free Marauder (Very expensive and time consuming to fly Battleships) but you have to be an active pilot on AU Timezones.  Great if you want to fly battle ships and your Australian and play every night and at weekends.  Not so good if your in the UK, play a couple of hours every evening and only want to fly Cruisers...  (NB: This is a description of myself lol).  Take your time and find the corp that's right for you.  Unless your the type of player that causes everyone else to have trust issues, such as joining a random corp, working up for access to their expensive equipment then stealing everything you can to give to your friend who's been paying for your account since day one.  Which brings me on to my next topic.

Trust.  More precisely, how can you get a potential Corp recruiter to choose you.  Well, some corps (Such as EVE Uni) accept nearly anyone.  On the other end of the scale, some corps only invite select players who they've flown with for months.

Disclaimer.  Below is advise for new players looking to join a corp, or older players looking to find a new corp.  It is aimed at the sort of people who have a trustworthy history and don't rip off other player corps by stealing all their stuff in one night.  Disclaimer end.

Well, firstly, how old is you character?  The older your character, the longer you've been playing and the more experience you have.  Next, how many player run corps have you been part of?  If it works outs at more than 3 per year, you could be in trouble as recruiters might see you as a "corp hopper", someone who doesn't settle down for long.  If your in this boat, make sure you can explain why.  I've been part of 5 corps, the first 3 I joined twice, the 4th was my own corp and the 5th is my current corp.  My reasons for leaving the first corp was my account deactivated and I was booted for inactivity then allowed to rejoin.  The 2nd I moved to because of inactivty on my first corp.  I left this corp to allow my corp to place an POS in high-sec (there are various rules in placing POS, and various ways around them).  I left the 2nd corp to join a corp on my TZ, which I got booted out of due to account deactivation again and was allowed to rejoin.  The 4th corp, I made with some friends, who all went inactive, so I joined my 5th corp.  Like a real life job, being able to explain why you left your previous employers can boost your chance of getting the new job.

Finally, what's your goal?  Some people might go, "I wanna fly a Titan (biggest ships in the game)".  Coming from someone who's only a month old, will get you an instant reject.  That may be your goal, but don't say that, say instead your aiming to fly [EVE Race here] Battleships.  Your more likely to get support for BSs than a Titan, and you need to get your Battleship skills to max before you can fly a titan anyway.  My goal in EVE is to be a fleet commander.  Lot's of people take the piss about this, but then I go "check my certificates, I have already maxed out my leadership skills".  Then they look and soon stop laughing.  Make a claim, provide the proof.  Outside of combat, saying you wanna be a hulk pilot is a generic goal for Industrial pilots.  Freighter piloting is a good secondary goal for that too.

And if you can't find a corp, don't sweat it.  You could get a group of friends together and make your own corp.  Knowing people IRL is a lot easier than of the internet.  If they stab you in the back in EVE, you can stab them in the back in their home.  But I would advice against this unless you have a really good alibi.

Once again, you can find me in EVE as AnnonOMous, same as here, I'm a member of Knights Industrial.

Fly Safe

Recently, playing EVE, I've had a lot of trust issues.

Not about the people I trust but about the people who trust me.  I like to help other people, and if there's something I can't profit from, I'll gladly pass it on to someone who's willing to give it ago.  Recently, I've been doing more and more exploration.  I've always done this as something to do that's different, but now I'm doing it almost everyday, it's nearly my main activity.

So when I find something that's really worth the time and effort, I call in my relevant contacts who are online, and well...  It goes something like this:

1: Meet up
2: ???
3: Profit.

No joke.  That's really how it works.

But now, lets say my girlfriend (who I might note, also plays EVE - Yup that's right, GIRLS PLAY EVE!!!) is coming over to mine one night.  Sometimes she's really pissed off with something and I've got to give her my full attention or else the something becomes me.  But I've just found the gold gem of a site in exploration.  What do I do?

Well, EVE is a game, so I give up on it, but even so, there's a chance I can profit from it.  How?  I just go to the local system channel and say "Hey, anyone want such-and-such.  Seriously, giving it away here."

The response?  "Scammer", "n00b", "think we're gonna fall for that?"

The thing is, I'm even willing to hand over location details in such a way that there's no danger (or as low as I can make it, there's always danger in eve) to either player.  But still no one wants to take a chance.  It really hurts me that nobody gives you a chance in EVE.  The few contacts I have are brilliant people, that took that chance on me and who made money thanks to me.  But now I've moved to new pastures, none of my contacts are around.  And everyone is sceptical of a guy offering stuff to good to be true.

So I'm gonna say it here and now.  If I make you an offer in EVE, you can bet your EVE life it's worth it.  I want to be a trusted person, like Chribba.  But someone need to take that first gamble.

Look me up in-game, AnnonOMous, member of Knights Industrial.

Right, first thing...  I'm not actually sure if today is my first day in my fourth year but it sounded right to put it...
 
I've just read a blog about some guy's first days in EVE, so as a veteran player (I've clocked up at least 3years, I know that much!) I thought I'd let people see what I do in my days.
 
First of, I did some orientation checks.  (Where am I, where are my ships, where are my friends, where are my enemies - these things will become natural to you by this stage of play).  My Harbinger (a Battle Cruiser size combat ship), my Runner (a small general purpose shuttle), my Magnate (a basic scout ship) and my Covetor (a mid-level mining ship) were all with me in my current station.  Good.  However neither my Orca (big-ass mining support and hauling ship) or my Sigil (small and relatively quick hauling ship (in general, all haulers are slow)) were one jump away in another station.   Bad.   If I needed these it would take 10 mins to go and get them.  In my EVE, time is money.   However this cruel PvP event called Hulkaggeddon is on at the moment so neither of these ships would be needed...
 
Next, hoped in my Magnate whilst scanning the channels for potential wingmen for the day.  No one :( .  Did a full scan of the system and located 6 combat sites and an anomaly.  Further analysis showed the anomaly to be a wormhole.  I didn't bother finding out where it went.  Time is money.
 
Docked up the Magnate and swapped to the battle cruiser.  Took out the combat sites (veterans will call this overkill, I call it easy) then docked up again.  Spoke to one of my agents and got a mission, saw that my girlfriends had just came online so I rang her up IRL and asked if she could run salvage for me.  (It's easier to speak on the phone then type constantly).  She said she was free and hoped in MY shiny new Noctis that I'd given her and she hadn't yet given back.  (One day, I will discover her password - note: this would be against the EVE EULA but it's not like my gf is actually paying for her account either!).
 
So, with my Harby I entered the mission site.  Empty at first then the rats showed up.  After ensuring all the rats were attacking me, I launched my drones and set them upon the smaller enemies (they guys that were too fast for my guns to hit).  Then I signalled my girlfriend to come on in.  As I poped the cruisers and my droens took out the frigates, the wrecks started to pile up, limiting my ability to use my overview effectively.  No big deal, as soon enough, the Noctis was eating wrecks nearly as fast as I was making them.  Just as the last enemy went boom.  An NPC battleship spawned.  Not a problem for most mission runners.  But a problem for me.  I recalled my drones as the BS tried to attack one of them, then launched them again when he was focusing on me.  My tank was holding up well, and with the combined force of my lasers and droens, the BS fell, signalling the end of the mission.  I left my girlfriend to clear up the last of the wrecks whilst I turned the mission in.
 
Already bored of killing NPCs, I had my girlfriend send me her Bestower (a larger slower version of the Sigil), fitted a basic tank setup that would last 30 seconds tops if I was suicide ganked (hopefully long enough for Concord to deal with the suicider(s) and flew out to several planets where my colonies were hard at work making me items to sell.  I moved one particular item from planet A to planet B, since planet B could turn it into a much more profitable item.  With my cargo hold near full with stuff to sell, I decided to head to Jita.  On my way, I study my skills and made a short plan of what to train for the next week or so.
 
With that done I looked through contracts to see if there was anything cheap I could buy to sell on.  I found a nifty little auction going.  Current bid was 41mil, and of the 20 or so items in the auction one of those was worth 40mil on its own.   Knew this since recently, I'd had to buy said item to upgrade one of my ships.  A bit of research showed me, that in total, the top 4 items were worth 80mil.  With less than a day to go, I figured I'd put in a bid.  Best case scenario, I get a load of items I can sell on individually for profit, worst case scenario, some other guy on EVE makes less profit from the plan.
 
By this time, I'd gotten to Jita.  EVE's biggest market hub.  I docked up and started looking at the market value of the stuff I was selling.  A few things, like very low amounts of faction ammo that I didn't use (most likely I'd stolen from a bait can) I sold straight to the highest buyer.  Lower profit, but I got the money straight away and other people wouldn't buy such a small amount on it's own if I had put it up to sell.  The big items in my hold I put on open market rather than selling directly.  On average, I sold for about 20% ISK (the currency in EVE) than if I'd just sold to those already looking to buy.  Easy money, though it can take a few mins for someone to buy.  Sometimes it may even take a few days.  After about 30 mins or so I'd sold so much, that if my empty hauler got blown up on my way "home", I'd be able to buy it back twenty times and still have change.  Haulers are cheap.  What they haul isn't.
 
So, back home I jumped back in the magnate didn't find anything interesting so I told my girlfriend that I was logging off to play Bulletstorm.  I asked her to keep an eye out for a guy I needed to speak to about a manufacturing job.  She said she'd ring me if he came on. 
 
==================================================================================================================================== 

If all that sounds mundane or boring, it's the way I've explained it.  You'll notice a lot of what I did today was solo.  Some like to play EVE that way.  I've had to play EVE that way because it's hard to find people you can trust that play UK time zones.  Not everyone in EVE is out to get you.  I'm definitely not, it's not in my nature.
 
On what I call a fun day, I'd probably store my harbinger in another players orca, use my magnate to find a wormhole, then guide my orca pilot about half a dozen miner and a handful of combat pilots into the wormhole.  On the other side, I'd find a asteroid field, send the combats in to clear it, then send in the miners.  I'd stay in the magnate for a while, finding more comabt sites to keep our killers happy (and to make more profit by selling the NPC loot).  When our time was up, or when the miners were done filling the orca with ore, I'd guide everyone back to the wormhole and we'd return to our normal homes whilst the group leader sold the ore and loot the divided up the cash.  With luck, the Harbinger wouldn't need to be used at all.
 
In EVE, you can do what you like, with whoever you like.  Some people do mining, some like to bust up NPCs and some like to bust up other players.  I'm the type of player who has no solid focus, I do what I like when I want.  If some guys are flying a mining op, I'd offer to bring in my orca to haul or provide support, or I'd fly the cov and help fill any hauling ships quicker.  If a group I trust are going into low sec, I'd fly an Arbitrator to support them rather than fit loads of guns and be one of the guys doing the shooting.
 
Right now I'm actually looking at upgrading my Magnate into an Anthema, but I don't have the skills for the Anthema, yet.  This only takes time, since I can easily make enough ISK to buy an Anthema in little over a day.
 
In game, I'm AnnonOMous.  If you want to hook up, just send me a message.  If you want ISK, sod off.  If you want help, let me know the details.  If you want to give me ISK, thanks, money for nothing is always a good thing.

Very quick:
 
18,860 pokewalker steps.
 
Bored?  me to.  Night, I've been called in to work overtime early tommorrow...

13,531.
 
The number of steps I took today.
 
This is actually rather low for me...
 
Yesterday, 20,697
Wednesday, 21,156
Tuesday, 14,167
Monday, 16,829
Sunday, 15,889
Saturday, 25,491
Friday, 19,730
 
But whats the point of all these steps?  Fair enough, as a pedometer, the new Pokewalker is pretty handy to have around.  And the built in clock is also handy when my mobile runs out, but aside from that, why do I go to the effort of transfering a pokemon to the pokewalker?  I've spent more time using the pokewalker than playing the game, and nearly every pokemon I've caught has been on the walker...   
 
The downside I've found is that no matter how many days you wear the walker without transfering the pokemon back to the game, it only ever goes up one level?  How do I know this?  Last Friday I put a Sentret on my pokewalker, and as you can see from the totals, I've gone above the recommended 10k steps per day, but with all that effort, i've only gained a single level?
 
In the game, walking that many steps you'll probably defeat 2 gym leaders, heal at a pokecentre a dozen times and level up all 6 of your party alot.
 
And what about pokewalk interaction?  Wow, I got a free Gaurd Spec.  Err...  hang on a second, who uses Gaurd Spec?  Not worth the effort...  Now, if i'd been able to have a proper quick battle with the other person carrying thier pokewalker, that would have beeen fun, and would have made a more entertaining 5 mins of doing nothing during my break at work...
 
K, now what else did I do today?
 
Oh, brought Too Human.  And I'm not liking it.  Okay for a fiver I can't complain too much, but meh, doubt I'll try and S-rank it...  Maybe I'll play it up to C or B.  Got to try and at least get 200 GS so that it doesn't lower my average gamerscore per game though...
 
Alongside Too Human, I got 4200 MS points, though I only wanted 320 to get the Gears of War 3 Ticker Pet avatar prop.  Girlfriend hates me much. lol  Ooo, Gears 3...
 
Yeah i preordered Gears 3 today, and Split Second, and Lost Planet squared.  I mean Lost Planet 2.  All at GAME.  Doubt the GAME only DLC for LP2 and SS will be any good, but hey, double GAME points is good.  Now I need to find the money to buy them...  I have £10 to last me to friday and LP2 is released on Tuesday.  (Begs girlfriend lol).
 
Oh, finnaly I got a charge and play kit for my other 360 controller, because I'm sick and tired of having to find batteries for my GF in the middle of a heated battle on the GOW2 campaign. 

Seriously.  My contract at work is 24hrs per week, £6.40 ($8.42 US) an hour.  In relatily I'm working 36 hours a week.  That's 50% more than I should be, but I still can't get enough cash together to grab some MS points to pick up some DLC (DLC2 for Borderlands and DLC2 for Brutal Legends) not to mention the Gears of War 3 Pet Ticker prop.  Thinking about it, and prop is better than the Halo Waypoint Monitor.  Honestly, is there was an acheivement for having the Monitor, I'm sure everyone would have it...  I mean c'mon, if you have a Gold XBL just download and run halo waypoint, update your "career" stats and badabing badaboom, you got the prop.  Pointless.
 
Anyways a rushed blog today since I'm trying to complete ME2 (though I must note that I haven't quite finished ME1 - still got the final fight to do...) .
 
Edit: Mistyped 36 as 26, that aside, my percentages are right!  Thanks to MattyFTM for pointing this out... I knew what I menat to say!)

So a day on xbox?  Nope.  Stupid parents have told me to clean the entirety of the house.  Screw that.  I'll give the downstairs a quick hover, but thats it.
 
Helped a guy get a viral acheivement on Borderlands, though I think he may of had it before I gave it to him...  Oh well, helped him gain 3 levels (via semi-power leveling) so can't be all bad.  Oh have I mentioned yet that I hate viral achievements?  Yes the concept is a good idea, but it's not really an achievement...  That said...  I'm gonna go on multiplayer on Brutal Legends today and try and pick up the Six Degrees of Schafer achievement.  Why?  Because I intend to S rank BL because it's an awesome game.  Maybe it's 'coz I'm a Jack Black fan...  Which reminds me...  I must rent out Tenacious D: Pick Of Destiny...
 
Now, GB quests.  Everyone is doing them, thoguh some people are doing them faster than others, right?  Admitadly, that's why I started blogging, though I think I may be confused as to what bloggin entails...  oh well.  It's a bit of fun.   So yeah, back to quests.  I was up 3 hours last night getting the Limited edition reach acheivment (I've got a not so impressed post on the forum somewhere...) but the one that really annoys me is the  Basic Building Blocks quest.  I need number 5 for The One Free Man, all of them for Toasty!, number 5 in A Battle in Active Time, all but number 4 in Get Equipped With... and I still need all but number 2 in Heart of the Tiger.  Any clues would be a great help since I'm stuck on everything...

So, I have a mobile internet connection atm.  It was preety useful whilst I was always on the move since I could use the internet (unfiltered and unblocked) at college, or at the station waiting for my train.  But since I've left college my laptop (and thus my internet dongle) never leave my bedroom.  Also, since upgrading my XBL account to Gold, I've started to enter this world of multiplayer gaming.  When I'm doing co-op, or private matches, the slow connection isn't too bad, and my friends can put up with it.  Buy doing private matches, it's pretty hard to do some acheiements (such as the Gears of War achievements since these all need to be done in ranked matches, where my slow connection ruins any chance I have of competing competivly.
 
So, I've looked into having my own telephone line installed (because my parents are too anal to let me use thier landline internet connection, or pay to upgrade it to something decent.) but to be honest I'm confuddled by many of the offers...  Okay, that may be unlimited, but the speed is slow, and that other one is a pretty cheap package but is it reliable?  So I'm hoping that maybe someone here has experience and can over me that experience.  Since I'm paying for my mobile internet, I plan on using it to  do my regular surfing, so a landline connection should ideally be best for gaming and not much else.  Ofcourse if there is a god like connection avaliable in the UK, and I can afford it, I suppose there's no harm me getting it is there?

So, I'm thinking about getting a mobile contract with 3.  My internet is from them, and my pay and go mobile is from O2. 
 
Basicly, I intend to get a low contract on my 3 phone contract, and use that up to it's limit, then use my O2 as a backup.  I'd carry both phones with me so I get the advantage of double network.  Also, I'd be able to phone other 3 users for free.  Free 3 to 3 calls.  Try saying that quickly.  Thoughts?